European welfare states are undergoing profound change, driven by globalization, technical changes, and population ageing. More immediately, the aftermath of the Great Recession and unprecedented levels of immigration have imposed additional pressures. This book examines welfare state transformations across a representative range of European countries and at the EU level, and considers likely new directions in social policy. It reviews the dominant neo-liberal austerity response and discusses social investment, fightback, welfare chauvinism, and protectionism.
It argues that the class solidarities and cleavages that shaped the development of welfare states are no longer powerful. Tensions surrounding divisions between old and young, women and men, immigrants and denizens, and between the winners in a new, more competitive, world and those who feel left behind are becoming steadily more important. European countries have entered a period of political instability and this is reflected in policy directions. Austerity predominates nearly everywhere, but patterns of social investment, protectionism, neo-Keynesian intervention, and fightback vary between countries. The volume identify areas of convergence and difference in European welfare state futures in this up-to-date study - essential reading to grasp the pace and directions of change.
1. Introduction, Peter Taylor-Gooby, Benjamin Leruth, and Heejung Chung
2. Stretching the Limits of Solidarity: The German Case, Jan-Ocko Heuer and Steffen Mau
3. Where Next for the UK Welfare State?, Peter Taylor-Gooby, Benjamin Leruth, and Heejung Chung
4. France at a Crossroads: Societal Challenges to the Welfare State under Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande's Presidential Terms, Benjamin Leruth
5. Changing Scandinavian Welfare States - Which Way Forward?, Jorgen Goul Andersen, Mi Ah Schoyen, and Bjorn Hvinden
6. The Future of the Slovenian Welfare State and Challenges to Solidarity, Maša Filipoviç Hrast and Tatjana Rakar
7. Spain and Italy: Regaining the Confidence and Legitimacy to Advance Social Policy, Ana M. Guillen and Emmanuele Pavolini
8. Welfare Reform in Greece: A Major Crisis, Crippling Debt Conditions, and Stark Challenges Ahead, Maria Petmesidou
9. The Europeanisation of the Welfare State: The Case for a 'Differentiated European Social Model', Benjamin Leruth
Liberalism, Social Investment, Protectionism, and Chauvinism: New Directions for the European Welfare State, Peter Taylor-Gooby, Benjamin Leruth and Peter Taylor-Gooby, and Heejung Chung
