Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Setting the scene
- Part II One standard of success: external moral criteria
- Part III Another standard of success: internal institutional criteria
- 13 The United States as a liberal welfare regime
- 14 The Netherlands as a social democratic welfare regime
- 15 Germany as a corporatist welfare regime
- 16 Conclusions
- Appendix tables
- References
- Index
14 - The Netherlands as a social democratic welfare regime
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Setting the scene
- Part II One standard of success: external moral criteria
- Part III Another standard of success: internal institutional criteria
- 13 The United States as a liberal welfare regime
- 14 The Netherlands as a social democratic welfare regime
- 15 Germany as a corporatist welfare regime
- 16 Conclusions
- Appendix tables
- References
- Index
Summary
The basic theories lying behind social democratic regimes have been set out in section 3.2. We are now in a position to test those theories against the actual experience of one social democratic welfare regime in particular – that of the Netherlands. The basic institutional structure of the Dutch welfare regime has been set out previously (section 4.3). There we have also given our reasons for believing that, despite its chequered past and hybrid character, the Netherlands in this period can indeed be taken as a representative – indeed, arguably the best – of social democratic welfare regimes, at least in respect of its tax-transfer policies. Here we test the performance of the Dutch welfare regime against those social democratic goals and strategies.
This test will essentially be against the social democratic welfare regime's own internal standards of success. But the assessment is by its nature an intrinsically comparative one. We want to know not only how well, in absolute terms, the social democratic welfare regime does at accomplishing its chosen goals through its chosen means, we also want to know whether some other welfare regime beats social democrats at their own chosen game. Thus we assess the performance of that regime alongside the performance of the other regimes along all the dimensions that matter to social democracy.
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- Information
- The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism , pp. 246 - 252Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999