Beyond the Welfare State?
The New Political Economy of Welfare
3. Edition November 2006
288 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Over the past decade, Beyond the Welfare State? has become
established as the key text on the emergence and development of
welfare states. It offers a comprehensive and remarkably
well-informed introduction to the ever more intense debates that
surround the history and, still more importantly, the future of
welfare in advanced industrialised states.
Comprehensively revised and re-written, this third edition of
the book embraces all of the most important theoretical and
empirical developments in welfare state studies of recent years.
Working within an explicitly comparative framework, the book draws
on a wealth of international evidence to survey what are now the
most pressing issues surrounding the future of welfare: among them,
globalisation, demographic change, declining fertility,
postindustrialism and immigration. It draws extensively on the
explosion of work on welfare states that has emerged within the
North American political science community over the past ten years
as well as giving detailed attention to developments with the UK,
continental and northern Europe and beyond.
Beyond the Welfare State? remains the most comprehensive and
up-to-date guide to the complex of issues that surround welfare
reform. It is required reading for anyone who wants to come to
terms with what is really at stake in arguments about the future of
welfare.
Introduction
1 Capitalism, Social Democracy and the Welfare State I: Industrialism, Modernization and Social Democracy
2 Capitalism, Social Democracy and the Welfare State II: Political Economy and the Welfare State
3 Capitalism, Social Democracy and the Welfare State III: New Social Movements and the Welfare State
4 Origins and Development of the Welfare State 1880-1975
5 After the 'Golden Age': From 'Crisis' to 'Containment'
6 Retrenchment and Recalibration
7 Beyond the Welfare State?
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
"Students thirsty to understand the wider dimensions of welfare state policy would do well to turn to Beyond the Welfare State? Its sweep is wide, it is well-ordered and up to date. Most welcome of all, it is clear."
Times Higher Education Supplement
Acclaim for this edition:
"Beyond the Welfare State? draws on a careful and exhaustive review of both the theoretical literature and empirical evidence on the contemporary Western welfare state and social democracy. Pierson's overview of the forces that propelled comparative welfare state development, crisis, and change is masterful, critical, and balanced. Packed with fresh insights and sharp reasoning, the book manages to pull together what it is important to know in the field of comparative welfare state studies. It is just about the best review of the literature currently available - a perfect text for upper-level university courses."
Gøsta Esping-Andersen, Pompeu Fabra University
"Given the complexity of modern welfare states and the plethora of opinion surrounding them, attempting to give a theoretically rich and empirically comprehensive accounting of both the state of contemporary welfare states and the state of theory about them seems an impossible task. Yet this is exactly what Christopher Pierson has achieved. Combining a detailed multi-country historical overview with a theoretical summary that is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the real "state" of the modern welfare state, Beyond the Welfare State? is a tour de force of comparative analysis."
Mark Blyth, John Hopkins University