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 recent years, major social forces such as: ageing populations, social trends, migration patterns, and the globalization of economies, have reshaped social welfare policies and practices across the globe. Multinational corporations, NGOs, and other international organizations have begun to influence social policy at a national and local level. Among the many ramifications of these changes is that globalizing influences may hinder the ability of individual nation-states to effect policies that are beneficial to them on a local level. With contributions from thirteen countries worldwide, this collected work represents the first major comparative analysis on the effect of globalization on the international welfare state. The Welfare State in Post-Industrial Society is divided into two major sections: the first draws from a number of leading social welfare researchers from diverse countries who point to the nation-state as case studies; highlighting how it goes about establishing and revising social welfare provisions. The second portion of the volume then moves to a more global perspective in its analysis and questioning of the impact of globalization on citizenship, ageing and marketization. The Welfare State in Post-Industrial Society seeks to encourage debate about the implications of the most pressing social welfare issues in nation-states, and integrate analyses of policy and practice in particular countries struggling to provide social welfare support for their needy populations.

This volume presents research on the recasting of European welfare states from the European Forum on Welfare at the European University Institute in Florence. The chapters include both comparative analyses of topical issues, and in-depth studies of changes in the major European countries.

Analysing political discourse in the British press during a time of crisis and austerity, this book examines how the concept of the welfare state has been constructed between 2008 and 2015. At a time when the financial crisis and government policies have put the welfare state under increased pressure, a corpus from four British newspapers from across the political spectrum - the Guardian, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, and Daily Telegraph - is brought together to investigate the political debate on its evaluation and the ambiguity about its exact definition. Combining two theoretical approaches, Malgorzata Paprota outlines the figurative models and scenarios relevant to this element of the political system. The discourse-historical approach to discourse analysis is used to establish what the welfare state is, tracing the boundaries of the concept and which elements of political reality are explicitly associated with it. Conceptual metaphor theory is then used to explore the figurative conceptualisations of the welfare state. Together, this book shows the discursive construction, and shifting boundaries and metaphors, of the welfare state by the British press and its use in current political debates.

Dismantling does not even merit a mention in most public policy textbooks.

Contemporary accounts of welfare state change have produced conflicting findings and incompatible theoretical explanations. By discussing the most salient aspects of the 'dependent variable problem', this work offers suggestions as to how the problem might be tackled within empirical cross-national analyses of modern welfare states.

In a volume consisting of nearly 50 newly-written chapters, a broad range of the world's leading scholars offer a comprehensive account of everything one needs to know about the modern welfare state.

This book examines the emergence of authoritarian populist regimes, analyzing Brazil as a case study. The authors explain how the tactics employed by the Bolsonaro administration to dismantle bureaucracy and public policies, especially labour and social policies, find expression in the fiscal austerity measures recently inscribed in the Federal Constitution: a counter-democratic device employed by technical and financial elites to systemically derail the social protection system. Through this in-depth case study, the book presents new theoretical arguments and concepts that can be useful to understand the dynamics of such new regimes, and discussing similar cases in other contexts. Democratic governments in Brazil, driven by social movements and political actors, have strengthened social protection through a distinctive institutional architecture that combines the strengthening of public bureaucracies, the creation of intergovernmental networks, and the democratic instances of social participation and agreement. The contributions throughout this volume analyze these transformations in different sectors of public policy, such as labour, employment, pensions, food and nutrition security, health, and social assistance. Each contribution discusses the recent trajectory through a political analysis of the main actors and institutions, reform processes and policy changes, and the results achieved. Finally, the existing weaknesses in each of these social protection sectors are identified in the context of the literature on policy dismantling, revealing the strategies used to take advantage of these political and institutional weaknesses. This book will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of political science and public policy, interested in a better understanding of de-democratization by social policy dismantling.

​This book offers an analysis of social security in Ireland from 1981 to 2016 - a period of immense economic and social change during which social provisions such as pensions and family benefits were downsized or diluted in many countries. It considers whether this important area of welfare state provision in Ireland changed, and the extent and pattern of change. In the first in-depth account of this aspect of social policy In Ireland, the book sets the welfare state in a historical and comparative context and reviews the impact of globalisation, politics and the financial crash on the scope and generosity of social security. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of welfare state politics and comparative social policy as well as to students of Irish social policy.

The book deals with the role of the international level in securing or supplementing national welfare functions. The authors evaluate the role of international labour law, social rights as human rights, the World Trade Organisation, non-governmental organisations and international taxation law, in the effort to maintain and promote welfare rights and the welfare state. The functions of national migration law and of social security law are analysed in case studies.