Introduction: the continental perspective, revisited

A considerable amount of intellectual effort has been devoted to assessing the varying and multi-faceted implications of New Labour's so-called ‘third way’ for the reorganisation of the British welfare state in recent years. In an abundant and still growing literature, the Blair government’s policies and initiatives in the social domain have been picked apart and examined in detail (for example, Powell, 2002). But, in the many fine and fine-grained analyses of different policy areas, the broader question first posed by White (2001) – has New Labour found the key to the ‘progressive future’ for state welfare? – has tended to be somewhat sidelined. Focusing in policy terms principally on initiatives at the interface between the welfare state and the labour market, this chapter seeks to refocus attention on this question by adopting a macro-political and historical, as well as comparative (cf also Bonoli and Powell, 2003; Lewis and Surender, 2004), perspective on New Labour's search for a new balance between social justice and economic competitiveness ‘for the 21st century’. Specifically, it seeks to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the Blairite third way against the form of welfare capitalism conventionally practised in the ‘conservative-corporatist’ or ‘Bismarckian’ welfare states of continental Europe's heartlands. The chapter's main argument is that this comparison throws light on an insufficiently recognised, and as yet largely unresolved, dilemma facing progressives engaged in social reform – namely, the apparent conflict between the goals of promoting the short-term effectiveness of social policy reform and of ensuring its longer-term political legitimacy or ‘solidity’.

Comparisons between British welfare policy ‘New Labour style’ and continental European social protection have been drawn before, and have tended to emphasise either similarities or differences. In an early attempt to get a comparative and historical ‘handle’ on the Blairite third way, Marquand (1998) suggested that certain parallels could be drawn with the tradition of Christian Democracy that has done so much to shape post-war public policy in much of continental Europe. Navarro (1999) reached a similar conclusion. Likewise, Seeleib-Kaiser (2002) found in New Labour's discourse evidence that they are caught up in what he sees as a broader ‘Christian Democratisation’ of social democracy in Europe.