Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T18:16:24.083Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The dog that didn't bark: economic development and the postwar welfare state

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2009

Francis G. Castles
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper focuses on the linkages between postwar economic and social policy development. Examining the relationship between affluence and levels of welfare over the period as a whole reveals a tendency for social expenditure effort to be higher in moderately affluent then in extremely affluent nations. Turning to the question of how economic growth impacted on welfare expansion in the early postwar decades, the paper argues that growth was a necessary, rather than a sufficient, condition of welfare development. Finally, analysis of the era of welfare containment suggests that domestic economic performance has been the main factor conditioning expenditure change

Type
Focus: The future of the Welfare State
Information
European Review , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , July 2000 , pp. 313 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Castles, F. G. (1982) The impact of parties on public expenditure. In: Castles, F. G. (ed), The Impact of Parties, London: Sage Publications, pp. 21–96.Google Scholar
2.Castles, F. G. (ed), (1993) Families of Nations: Patterns of Public Policy in Western Democracies, Aldershot: Dartmouth.Google Scholar
3.Castles, F. G. (1994) On religion and public policy: does Catholicism make a difference?, European Journal of Political Research, 25, 19–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4.Castles, F. G. (1998) Comparative Public Policy: Patterns of Postwar Transformation, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
5.Castles, F. G. and McKinlay, R. (1979) Does politics matter?: an analysis of the public welfare commitment in advanced democratic states, European Journal of Political Research, 7, 169–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6.Clayton, R and Pontusson, J. (1998) Welfare-state retrenchment revisited: entitlement cuts, public sector restructuring, and inegalitarian trends in advanced capitalist societies, World Politics, 51(1), 67–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7.Cutright, P (1965) Political structure, economic development and national social security programmes, American Journal of Sociology, 70, 537–550.Google Scholar
8.Dowrick, S. and Nguyen, D. T. (1989) OECD comparative economic growth in the postwar period: evidence from a model of convergence, American Economic Review, 7(5), 1010–1030.Google Scholar
9.Esping-Andersen, G. (1985) Politics Against Markets. The Social Democratic Road to Power. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
10.Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
11.Esping-Andersen, G. (1996) After the golden age? Welfare state dilemmas in a global economy. In: Esping-Andersen, G., (ed), Welfare States in Transition, London: Sage.Google Scholar
12.Evans, P. B., Rueschemeyer, D and Skocpol, T, (eds) (1985) Bringing the State Back In, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13.Flora, P. and Alber, J. (1981) Modernization, democratization, and the development of welfare states in Western Europe. In: Flora, P and Heidenheimer, A. J. (eds.) The Development of Welfare States in Europe and America, New Brunswick: Transaction Books, pp. 37–80.Google Scholar
14.Garrett, G. and Lange, P. (1991) Political responses to interdependence: what's left for the Left?, International Organization, 45(4), 539–564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15.Gough, I. (1979) The Political Economy of the Welfare State. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16.Hicks, A. and Swank, D. (1984) On the political economy of welfare expansion, Comparative Political Studies, 17(1), 81–119.Google Scholar
17.Huber, E.Ragin, C. and Stephens, J. D. (1993) Social Democracy, Christian Democracy, constitutional structure and the welfare state, American Journal of Sociology, 99(3), 711–749.Google Scholar
18.International Labour Organization (1973 and other numbers) The Cost of Social Security, Geneva.Google Scholar
19.Jessop, B. (1996) Post-Fordism and the state. In: Greve, B. (ed) Comparative Welfare Systems: The Scandinavian Model in a Period of Change, New York: St Martin's Press.Google Scholar
20.Kitschelt, H., Lange, P.Marks, G. and Stephens, J. D. (eds) (1998) Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
21.Larkey, P. D., Stolp, C. and Winer, M. (1981) Theorizing about the growth of government: a research assessment, Journal of Public Policy, 1(2), 157–220.Google Scholar
22.OECD (1997) Economic Outlook, Paris.Google Scholar
23.OECD (1997) Historical Statistics 1960–1995, Paris.Google Scholar
24.OECD (1998) Social Expenditure Data Base (SOCX), CD Rom, Paris.Google Scholar
25.Overbye, E. (1994) Convergence in policy outcomes: social security systems in perspective, Journal of Public Policy, 14(2), 147–174.Google Scholar
26.Pampel, F. C. and Williamson, J. B. (1989) Age, Class, Politics, and the Welfare State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
27.Pierson, P. (1996), The new politics of the welfare state, World Politics, 48, 143–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28.Rhodes, M. (1997) The welfare state: internal challenges, external constraints. In: Rhodes, M., Heywood, P. and Wright, V. (eds), Developments in West European Politics, London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29.Scharpf, F. W. (1987) Crisis and Choice in European Social Democracy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
30.Schmidt, M. G. (1996) When parties matter: a review of the possibilities and limits of partisan influence on public policy, European Journal of Political Research, 30, 155–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31.Schmidt, M. G. (1996) Die parteipolitische Zusammensetzung von Regierungen in demokratischen Staaten (1945–1996). Heidelberg: Institut für Politische Wissenschaft.Google Scholar
32.Stephens, J. D. (1979) The Transition from Capitalism to Socialism. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
33.Stephens, J. D.Huber, E. and Ray, L. (1998) The welfare state in hard times. In Kitschelt, H., Lange, P.Marks, G. and Stephens, J. D. (eds), Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
34.Summers, R. and Heston, A. (1991) The Penn World Table (Mark 5), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 106(2), 327–368.Google Scholar
35.Swank, D. (1992) Politics and the structural dependence of the state in democratic capitalism nations, American Political Science Review, 86, 38–54.Google Scholar
36.Van Kersbergen, K. (1995) Social Capitalism: A study of Christian Democracy and the Welfare State. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
37.Weaver, R. K. and Rockman, B. A. (eds) (1993) Do Institutions Matter? Government Capabilities in the United States and Abroad. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
38.Wildavsky, A. (1975) Budgeting. A Comparative Theory of Budgetary Processes. Boston: Little Brown.Google Scholar
39.Wildavsky, A. (1985) The logic of public sector growth. In: Lane, J-E. (ed) State and Market: The Politics of the Public and the Private, London: Sage Publications, pp. 231–270.Google Scholar
40.Wilensky, H. L. (1975) The Welfare State and Equality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
41.Wilensky, H. L. (1981) Leftism, Catholicism, and Democratic Corporatism: the role of political parties in recent welfare state development. In: Flora, P and Heidenheimer, A. J. (eds) The Development of Welfare States in Europe and America, New Brunswick: Transaction Books, pp. 345–382.Google Scholar
42.Wilensky, H. L. and Lebeaux, C. N. (1957) Industrial Society and Social Welfare. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar