European Welfare States

Comparative Perspectives

Mel Cousins

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9781412901734, 9781412901727
• eBook ISBN: 9781446225394
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

Bringing together a discussion of the theories and techniques of comparative policy analysis and a description of current developments in selected welfare state regimes, European Welfare States provides an accessible overview of issues concerning European welfare states.

In particular, it provides:

- an overview of the development of welfare states in Europe;

- a discussion of key issues including welfare state theories, the role of globalization, gender and the welfare state; welfare typologies; and the role of public opinion;

- a detailed account of recent developments and current challenges in five European welfare states; and

- a detailed account of the key challenges facing European welfare states and possible future directions for welfare models including the role of the European Union in the development of social policy.

This book is illustrated throughout with student-friendly features such as case-studies, chapter summaries, questions for discussion and guides for further reading. With a flowing narrative and clear structure the book is an invaluable text for undergraduates taking courses in comparative social policy. It will also be useful for students in related disciplines such as public policy, social welfare, politics and international relations.

ONE	INTRODUCTION

The objective of this book is to provide an up-to-date and comparative analysis of European welfare states. It covers three main issues:

1. Key theories about welfare states (for example, political theory, globalisation and gender).
2. A description and analysis of the development of European welfare states and a comparative outline of a small number of states drawn from different welfare ‘families’.
3. A discussion of current key challenges and possible options for future policy development.

The theoretical perspective is directly linked to empirical country examples providing a coherent and detailed picture of European welfare states.

This chapter defines the scope of the book. If we are to look at European welfare states, it is first necessary to ask what we mean by these terms, that is, ‘Europe’ and ‘welfare state’. The chapter also provides an introduction to comparative welfare state analysis. Why should we study welfare states in a comparative context? What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing so? It outlines the reasons for comparative studies and the potential disadvantages of this approach. It also discusses methods of comparative welfare state analysis. Finally, the chapter outlines the contents of this book.

EUROPE

Sykes has correctly stated that ‘most studies of social policy in Europe focus either explicitly or implicitly on the Member States of the EU’ (1998: 15). But it is clear that Europe and the European Union (EU) are not co-terminus. Even in the case of Western Europe, nations such as Norway and Switzerland have chosen to remain outside the EU. More fundamentally, the ongoing accession of a large number of Central and Eastern European countries has emphasised the shifting nature of the EU’s boundaries. On the one hand, the accession of 10 countries (including eight Central and Eastern European countries) in 2004 has brought a significant section of Europe within the EU. On the other hand, however, it has emphasised the fact that a large number of European countries remain outside the European Union.

Yet, as Therborn has argued, ‘the territoriality of Europe is itself a historical construct’ (1995: 34). Current Europe, he argues, is less than two hundred years old. There are fairly clear physical boundaries both to the North and West of Europe. However, culturally and in terms of policy influences it is often argued that the United Kingdom and Ireland are influenced in social policy terms at least as much by the United States as they are by mainland Europe. To the South, the Mediterranean now also forms a clear geographic and economic boundary between the wealthy countries of Europe and the under-developed countries of Northern Africa. As Therborn points out, there is a degree of irony in this in that ‘the same sea once held a common civilization together’ (1995: 35).

It is to the East that the fuzzy nature of Europe’s boundaries is now most evident. The fall of Communism (and the Iron Curtain), the creation of a whole host of new nation states, and the enormous size of Russia and Turkey (both spanning two continents) all mean that it is very difficult to define exactly where Europe’s eastern border lies. As Therborn argues, ‘the Urals are a cartographer’s demarcation, hardly a natural physical border’ (1995: 35).

This study will look at Europe in broad terms rather than focussing narrowly on the European Union. Nonetheless, its main focus will be on those nations which are now members of the European Union. One reason for this is that ‘the logic of the comparative research design ideally requires that the countries be maximally different on the dimensions of their study and maximally similar on all other dimensions’ (Goodin et al., 1999: 14). Thus it is more difficult to engage in any real way in a comparative study of countries like Sweden with an average per capita income of US$26,000 per annum and a country such as Albania with an average income equivalent to US$400. There are, of course, also practical constraints in covering both an excessively large number of countries and countries for which very limited data is yet available. The study looks in detail at about twenty European countries. It is obviously impossible to make any detailed reference to such a large number of countries in one study. In Chapter 7, five specific countries from different welfare state approaches are discussed in more detail. These are not intended to be ‘representative’, but they are intended to be indicative of the different ‘families’ of welfare state which exist within Europe. The rationale for the selection of these particular countries is set out in Chapter 7.

EUROPEANISATION

Europe is not simply a geographic area but also a political, economic and cultural construct. Accordingly, in our study of European welfare states it is important to consider the impact that ‘Europeanisation’ is having in this area. Europeanisation ‘can be taken as designating processes of economic, socio-cultural and political integration in Europe’ (Kelstrup, 2001) and is mainly related to the recent process of integration specifically through the development of the European Union. Of course, this process is not confined to the current members of the EU but, due to the accession and related processes, extends far beyond the borders of the EU itself.

The term ‘Europeanisation’ is used in two different ways:

• First, the term has been used to describe the emergence and development at the European level of distinct structures of governance, that is, of political, legal and social institutions associated with political problem-solving which formalise interactions among the actors and policy networks specialising in the creation of authoritative rules. (Börzel and Risse, 2000)
• Second, that term has been used to describe ‘[a] set of processes through which the EU political, social and economic dynamics become part of a logic of domestic discourse, identities, political structures and public policies’ (quoting Radaelli, 2000: 3).

Both these processes, the development of distinct structures of governance and the processes through which EU dynamics become part of the domestic discourse, are important in the development of European welfare states.

One of the difficulties in this area is to separate out the analysis of Europeanisation from the broader process of globalisation. The two processes are clearly related, but Europeanisation can be seen both as part of the broader globalisation process and as a reaction against it, ‘which makes it possible to exercise political influence on the ways in which globalisation transforms societies’ (Kelstrup, 2001). These issues are discussed in more detail in Chapters 7 and 10.

WELFARE STATE

The rationale for studying European welfare states is strengthened by the fact that, as Peter Flora has argued, ‘the modern welfare state is a European invention’ (1986: xii). But there is a perhaps surprising absence of any clear definition of the meaning of the term ‘welfare state’. As Flora and Heidenheimer have stated, ‘welfare and state are among the most ambiguously employed terms in contemporary English political vocabulary’ (1981: 5). They might have added that the combination of the two words in the term ‘welfare state’ has not diminished in any way the ambiguity involved.

ORIGINS OF THE TERM

The term ‘welfare state’ appears to have originated in its German form Wohlfahrsstaat in the later nineteenth or early twentieth century. As early as 1922 it could be stated that ‘today the state regards itself in principle as the bearer of primary responsibility for social welfare … it does not aspire simply to be a state of order, police and law, but also wants to be a culture and welfare state as well’ (quoted in Hong, 1998: 36). However, by the 1930s in Germany the term had become one of political abuse. In 1932 the German Chancellor, von Papen, accused the Weimar government of having ‘attempted to make the state into a sort of welfare state and, in this way, weakened the moral forces of the nation’ (quoted in Hong, 1998: 208).

In the United Kingdom, the term, in its English form, appears to have come into common use in the late 1930s and 1940s (Bruce, 1961). Ironically, the Beveridge Report, sometimes referred to as the blueprint for the welfare state, did not use the term. Indeed Beveridge himself, sometimes referred to as the father of the welfare state, disliked the term because of what he saw as its ‘Santa Claus’ and ‘Brave New World’ connotations and never used it (Harris, 1977: 448). As Harris points out he preferred the term ‘social service state’ which, he felt, implied that citizens had duties as well as rights (1977: 459).

Despite Beveridge’s reservations, the term became widely used in English (see, for example, Asa Briggs’ (1961) definition of the term ‘welfare state’ in Box 1.1).

WHAT IS A WELFARE STATE?

Today a typical example of the definition of a welfare state is:

A system in which the government undertakes the chief responsibility for providing for the social and economic security of its population, usually through unemployment insurance, old age pensions, and other social-security measures; A social system characterized by such policies. (Collins English Dictionary, 2000)

As can be seen, this definition brings together three different issues. First, there is the policy intention of the welfare state, in this case suggested to be government undertaking the responsibility for providing for the social and economic security of its population. Second, there is the method by which this is achieved, in this case suggested to be unemployment insurance and other social security measures. Third, the definition recognises the fact that the term ‘welfare state’ has come to be used in respect of the overall social system characterised by such an approach.

A COMMITMENT TO ‘WELFARE’?

Some approaches adopt a normative approach to the definition of the welfare state. In other words, they argue that, in order to be a welfare state, the cluster of state policies must have a specific objective whether this be emancipatory, de-commodification or the pursuit of equality. Marshall (1950), for example, argues that social citizenship constitutes the core idea of a welfare state. A recent German history of the welfare state argues that one should distinguish between two aspects of the welfare state: first, the welfare state as a range of social services or institutions, and second, as ‘patterns of political action based on welfare-related normative orientations’ (Leisering, 2003: 179). This approach identifies a welfare state only where social services are linked to normative orientations. Thus some countries, such as the United States of America and the former Soviet Union (and other former communist countries), cannot be identified as welfare states.

For the purposes of this study, however, it does not seem useful to delimit the scope of the term ‘welfare state’ by a preconception of what that state should aim to achieve. To do so would raise very difficult definitional issues about the precise degree of normative commitment required to qualify as a welfare state and the timing of transitions in and out of welfare statehood. (For example, would the United States of America qualify as a welfare state at the time of the New Deal in the 1930s, and if so when did it cease to be defined as such?) In addition, such an approach to the definition of welfare states does not perhaps correspond with the common use of the term. If, for example, we found that the social policies of a particular European country were neither de-commodifying nor emancipatory and, in fact, increased inequalities, one might criticise these policies but few would suggest that the term ‘welfare state’ could not still be applied to the country.

THE SCOPE OF THIS BOOK

A second issue arises in distinguishing between the bundle of policies normally referred to as the welfare state and the ‘social system’ characterised by such policies. This can be seen in Esping-Andersen’s definition of the welfare state (see Box 1.1). Esping-Andersen refers to a narrow and broad approach to the welfare state. The first sees it in terms of the traditional social policies of income transfers and social services. The broader view focuses on the state’s larger role in managing and organising the economy. This broader view, which considers issues such as the state’s role in the overall macro-economic steering of the economy, has produced many interesting studies. However, for present purposes, it would bring in a very wide range of policies including, for example, the role of the Central Banks and the role of corporatism in developing macro-economic policy.

Box 1.1: Definitions of ‘welfare state’

[A] welfare state … will be seen to have three immutable characteristics. The first is that the term refers not simply to a discrete range of social services but to a society in which government actively accepts responsibility for the welfare (broadly defined) of all its citizens. The second and third characteristics concern its chronology and core functions, both of which require further elaboration. Chronologically, welfare states were the unique creation of the 1940s. … [In terms of its core functions] … a welfare state is a society in which government is expected to ensure the provision for all its citizens of not only social security but also a range of other services – including health, education and housing – at a standard well above the barest minimum. In so doing it consumes resources (through expenditure on goods and the employment of manpower) on such a scale that it cannot but affect the working of the economy. For this reason, and in order both to finance its own expenditure and to minimise political dissatisfaction or unrest, it is concerned with the underlying health of the economy. (Lowe, 2004)
A ‘Welfare State’ is a state in which organized power is deliberately used (through politics and administration) in an effort to modify the play of market forces in at least three directions – first, by guaranteeing individuals and families a minimum income irrespective of the market value of their work or property; second, by narrowing the extent of insecurity by enabling individuals and families to meet certain social contingencies (for example, sickness, old age and unemployment) which lead otherwise to individual and family crises; and third, by ensuring that all citizens without distinction of status or class are offered the best standards available in relation to a certain agreed range of social services. (Briggs, 1961)
The welfare state has been approached both narrowly and broadly. Those who take the narrower view see it in terms of the traditional terrain of social amelioration: income transfers and social services, with perhaps some token mention of the housing question. The broader view often frames its questions in terms of political economy, its interests focused on the state’s larger role in managing and organizing the economy. In the broader view, therefore, issues of employment, wages, and overall macro-economic steering are considered integral components in the welfare-state complex. (Esping-Andersen, 1990)
In a narrow sense, the welfare state may refer to state measures for the provision of key welfare services (often confined to health, housing, income maintenance and personal social services). Increasingly broadly, the welfare state is also taken to define (1) a particular form of state, (2) a distinctive form of polity or (3) a specific type of society [For the purposes of this study the author defines the welfare state under capitalism] as defining a society in which the state intervenes within the processes of economic reproduction and distribution to reallocate life chances between individual and/or classes. (Pierson, 1998)
I define the welfare state, or state social provision, as interventions by the state in civil society to alter social forces, including male dominance, but I do not judge a priori that all interventions are aimed at, or actually produce, greater equality among citizens. (Orloff, 1996: 53)
The welfare state is the institutional outcome of the assumption by a society of legal and therefore formal and explicit responsibility for the basic well-being of all its members. Such a state emerges when a society or its decision-making groups become convinced that the welfare of the individual … is too important to be left to custom or to informal arrangements and private understandings and is therefore a concern of government. (Girvetz, 1968)

As Pierson has argued, the broad approach to the understanding of the welfare...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of boxes, figures and tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Theoretical Perspectives
• Part II Comparison of European Welfare States
• Part III The Future
• References
• Index