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This concluding chapter argues that the contemporary politics of the welfare state takes shape against a backdrop of both intense pressures for austerity and enduring popularity. In this context, even strong supporters of the welfare state may come to acknowledge the need for adjustment, and even severe critics may need to accept the political realities of continuing popular enthusiasm for social provision. Thus, in most of the affluent democracies, the politics of social policy centre on the renegotiation, restructuring, and modernization of the terms of the post‐war social contract rather than on its dismantling. The crucial issue is whether particular national settings facilitate the emergence of such a centrist reform effort, and if so, on what terms. The argument proceeds in three stages: in the first, a basic framework is outlined for studying the politics of reform in a context of permanent austerity; in the second, two complications are discussed — the need to incorporate different dimensions of social policy reform and the need to recognize three quite distinct configurations of welfare state politics among the affluent democracies; in the third, these arguments are applied to analyse the politics of restructuring in the liberal, social democratic, and conservative ‘worlds’ (regimes) of welfare capitalism.

The first of three chapters on the implications of electoral politics and the design of political institutions for welfare state adjustment. Swank first provides an overview of two key domestic and international pressures on developed welfare states: domestic fiscal stress and international capital mobility. He then outlines the theoretical argument that democratic institutions fundamentally determine government responses to domestic and international structural change, focusing on formal and informal institutions and drawing on and fusing insights from ‘power resources’ theory, the new institutionalism, and new cultural arguments about the determinants of social policy in advanced capitalist democracies. The next two sections utilize new data on social welfare effort, national political institutions, and internationalization to provide an econometric assessment of the social policy impacts of domestic fiscal stress and capital mobility during the period 1965 to 1995, looking first at the direct impacts of rises in public sector debt and in international capital mobility on social welfare provision, and second at the welfare state effects of fiscal stress and global capital flows across nationally and temporally divergent democratic institutional contexts; the initial focus is on total social welfare effort and then the analysis is shifted to changes in cash income maintenance and social services. The conclusion assesses the implications of the arguments and findings for the future course of social policy in developed democracies, and potentially bolsters the evidence for the central assertion that domestic institutions systematically determine the direction of welfare state restructuring.

This is the third of three chapters on the sources of pressure on contemporary national welfare states, all of which seek to show how examining the sources of strain carries implications for identifying who is likely to fight with whom over what; the authors of the three chapters are not of one mind on this issue. Here, Pierson focuses on trends within affluent democracies that constitute potential sources of the strains usually attributed to globalization. Like Iversen in the previous chapter, he highlights the role of the shift from manufacturing to services, but rather than focusing on the disruption of employment, his concern is the shift in the workforce to activities where productivity improvements are more limited; the result has been slower economic growth, which generates fiscal strain for mature welfare states. This, for Pierson, is one of a series of ‘post‐industrial shifts’ that produce severe pressures on the welfare state — others include the maturation of governmental commitments, the transformation of household structures, and population ageing. All these shifts create intense fiscal problems; in addition, social change in a context where programmes are often slow to adapt generates mismatches between the inherited capacities of welfare states and contemporary demands for social provision.

This chapter discusses social citizenship and identifies three main components: reciprocity (necessary to support horizontal redistribution), social inclusion (supporting vertical redistribution), and trust in institutions (vital to the political legitimacy of the enterprise). It reviews current challenges to the welfare state from population ageing, changes in family and household patterns and in the labour market, the growing assertiveness of citizens, and other factors, and briefly examines government responses in Europe.

Starts by discussing the new era of austerity in the contemporary welfare state, the reasons for it, and the political problems that it creates. Describes the project that gave rise to the book as bringing together leading researchers from Europe and North America, who seek to increase knowledge about the politics of the contemporary welfare state. The focus is on four overlapping themes, which are covered in the four main parts of the book: (1) the sources and scope of pressures on national welfare states; (2) the role of economic interests, and of systems for representing those interests, in the politics of reform; (3) the implications of electoral politics and the design of political institutions for welfare state adjustment; and (4) the distinctive policy dynamics of particular areas of social provision. These themes are intimately linked, and the linkages between them are made explicit both within and across the chapters of the book. This introduction outlines the four themes and introduces the contributions of the chapters to follow.

This is the first of three chapters on the distinctive policy dynamics of particular areas of social provision. In their chapter on the dynamics of pension reform, Myles and Pierson stress a key feature of public pension systems: the fact that the implications of policy choices only play out over a very long period of time. Almost all pension systems are undergoing major reforms, yet choices made twenty‐five or fifty years ago profoundly shape the nature of the reform options available now. Most countries are severely constrained in their options by the accumulated commitments from decades of experience with social insurance; only where countries failed to develop large pay‐as‐you‐go pension systems at these earlier junctures has the much‐heralded alternative of introducing extensive funded arrangements proven to be a viable option. Myles and Pierson also emphasize the need to legitimate often politically painful revisions to this key element of the post‐war social contract — while there has been major change everywhere, in almost all countries this has required broad negotiations, including left‐of‐centre parties and/or labour unions.

Aside from the state and the market, the emergence of civil societies have greatly marked and positively contributed to the successful and enhanced provision of social services, and to the encouragement of human rights and national stability. Expansion of private voluntary institutions, manifested in both developed and developing nations, is faced with three sorts of pressures. First, in the attempt to eradicate political dynasties, discrimination, and oppression, concerned individuals intend to improve their standards of living by suggesting government deregulation acts. Second is the availability of private organisations, recognised donors, and international religious institutions. And lastly, the emergence of voluntary sectors is realised through the reduction of public services and the enlargement of participation to NGOs in official development activities.

In this third of three chapters on the distinctive policy dynamics of particular areas of social provision, Wood looks at labour market regimes in Germany, Britain, and Sweden. The theoretical starting point of the chapter is an examination of path dependence, perhaps the most popular contemporary approach to explaining the persistence of institutions and policies over time. In principle, this offers an enticing explanation of the resilience of national policy trajectories, although the outcomes it explains have a tendency to be overdetermined, and not all mechanisms generating a bias towards the status quo are path‐dependent ones. The theoretical work of this chapter, therefore, lies in deriving alternative (though not mutually exclusive) micro‐level sources of policy continuity over time, and evaluating their relative contributions to the evolution of labour market policy in Germany, Britain, and Sweden. Divided into four substantive sections: Section 1 discusses the theory of path‐dependent institutional and policy trajectories in politics; Sect. 2 presents three distinct sources of policy continuity (employer‐centred, constitutional, and electoral) that are often bundled together as ‘lock‐in mechanisms’ in path‐dependent accounts; Sect. 3 sketches the changing context of labour market policy in Western Europe by looking at national responses to unemployment from 1980 onwards in each of the three country case studies, and providing accounts of labour market policies, employers’ preferences in relation to labour market policies, and constitutional factors and electoral constraints in relation to labour market reform; Sect. 4 is a conclusion and discusses the thesis offered by the chapter — that the trajectory of labour market policy can be accounted for by an employer‐centred theory of preferences.

The chapter examines creative attempts to analyse the political and economic realms of a particular country, central on the general and specific regulations and supervising bodies related to social provision. Such activity should add to the understanding of welfare concerns and behavioural patterns, which will eventually aid the formulation of better intervention strategies. Features and other mechanisms of the new institutional economics (NIE), a framework that aims to boost social welfare through adequate and appropriate public policies, are discussed first. Due to the limitations of the NIE (that is, it has no concept of power relations), a more concretely political approach is given. In the rest of the chapter, the importance of political environment, organisational design, demography, and international relations are conversed along with the economic forces in order to come up with a more comprehensive notion and employment of social provision.

Education amounts to varying perceptions depending on the technological advancement and the level of development in different countries. To dissect this broad concept, this chapter presents the fundamental concerns about the potential and the required sources of budget to pursue academic operations and activities. The chapter also evaluates the current government budget for educational expenses. It looks at educational vouchers, and gives an examination of the significance of the community in general and its members in funding and supplying resources for educational purposes. With all the presented arguments, it is concluded that education, for the most part, is adequately funded and supervised by the government.

This chapter looks at community-oriented types of social services provision in the south-eastern portion of Tanzania. It begins with arguments regarding the employment of state policies that were supported by international institutions and development agencies. Central to such a discussion is the basis and manner the task of social provision should be shared by the government and the local community without compromising individual freedom and without discarding the opinions of those in marginalised groups. Through extensive observations and reviews, the chapter is able to conclude regarding the effect of decentralisation, democratisation and private ownership in terms of the availability of basic necessities in the remote areas.

This introductory chapter talks about the main topic of the book, which is individualisation. It defines individualisation of social service provision as services that should be adjusted to individual circumstances to increase their effectiveness. The main focus of the book is on one kind of social services, namely activation services. The chapter discusses important contextual factors that are important to understand the similarities and differences in the ways individualisation shapes and changes the processes of service provision and delivery. It then examines the transformation processes and the individualisation of social services before moving on to a discussion of individualisation and the implementation process. The latter portion of the chapter includes a summary of the next few chapters.

This chapter looks at firms and corporate social policy, through which businesses are able to shape overall levels of social provision within societies. Occupational welfare and corporate community involvement or corporate social responsibility (CSR) are of growing importance to governments and service providers keen to meet growing needs and tackle social problems within changing welfare environments. Central government has tried to increase firm involvement in local services and encourage the expansion of occupational welfare as a way of shifting some of the pressure away from the state and onto employers. This chapter investigates corporate social policy in both its forms. It presents an audit of occupational welfare before examining the development of the CSR strategies of some of the largest firms in the UK.

This book has set out to investigate the importance of business to contemporary developments in social policy. This chapter presents the key developments of forms of influence, with a discussion of their implications for present and future social policy. First, globalisation has increased corporate structural power and this, in turn, has had an impact on the capacity of the UK to formulate and deliver social policy. Second, globalisation has also increased both the capacity and reasons for business to organise internationally. Third, nationally organised business has become increasingly important to the shaping of social policy debate and delivery. Fourth, local business organisations and individual firms play an increasingly important role in the delivery of social provision. And last of all, business interest in and views on social policy are variable.

This chapter is concerned with the consequence of changes to later life health and social policy. It states that health and social policies have gone through considerable transformation since the early 1980s, which is especially true with respect to later life. The chapter then charts the major changes and challenges to policy from the post-war era up to the present. The chapter also considers the implications of the rise of the citizen consumer with regard to health and social care provision.

This chapter analyses the past, present, and future of social policy in the East Asian tiger economies. It introduces the four societies before presenting an overview of their social policies. It is followed by a discussion of the similarities and differences in their social policy approaches. Finally, it evaluates their social provision and examines the sustainability of their approaches to social welfare.