Introduction

In the introductory chapter we distinguished three social foundations of the welfare state. In the first place, there has to be an awareness of the social nature of risks. We defined social risks as risks that do not result from individual choice but as risks that are (also) produced by the social system of production. We discussed the risk of occupational disability in an industrial economy as an example of a social risk. In the second place, there has to be a willingness to share these social risks. Because social risks are, to some extent, risks that are produced by the system of production, there has to be a willingness to handle the negative consequences of these risks (poverty, sickness) collectively. In the third place, the welfare state rests on a number of social institutions intended to manage social risks, such as social insurance, labour market regulation, collective labour agreements and so forth. In the debate about changing welfare states, the emphasis is often on political theories of the welfare state and institutional change because processes of retrenchment or the restructuring of welfare states are highly political in nature. In contrast, we speak of the social foundations of the welfare state and concentrate on sociological theories of the welfare state and of social change in this book because we believe that the primary cause of the transformation of the welfare state is to be found in processes of social change.

Our sociological approach to the changing welfare state departs from quite recent sociological theories on social change, which take the concept of risk and risk perception as their starting point. Sociologists such as Luhmann (1991), Beck (1987), Giddens (1994) and many others have developed theories on social change that accentuate the changing nature of risks and/or risk perception. These theories all predict either implicitly (Lumann) or explicitly (Beck, Giddens) fundamental changes to the social foundations of the welfare state and thus in the way welfare states deal with these risks; the welfare settlement so to say.

In a review of recent literature on risk theory, Wilkinson (2001) distinguishes between broad, encompassing sociological theories of risk and risk perception that try to conceptualise social processes of changing risks and risk perceptions and the more mundane, psychometric approach that primarily intends to measure the individual conception of risks and the way individuals react to these risks.