Modern social policy represents a key component in Europe’s advanced political economies. The European welfare state in the shape and form in which it developed in the second half of the twentieth century represents a unique historical achievement. Never before in history, as Fritz Scharpf puts it, ‘has democratic politics been so effectively used to promote civil liberty, economic growth, social solidarity, and public well-being’ (Scharpf, 2003). The defining feature of the postwar welfare state is that social protection came to be firmly anchored on the explicit normative commitment to grant social rights to citizens in areas of human need (Esping-Andersen, 1994: 712). This implied the expansion of mass education as an instrument for equal opportunities, access to high quality health care for everyone, together with the introduction of a universal right to real income, in T. H. Marshall’s seminal work, Citizenship and Social Class (1950), ‘not proportionate to the market value of the claimant’ (Marshall, 1950: 110). Social citizenship held out a promise of the enlargement, enrichment, and equalization of people's ‘life chances’ (Marshall, 1950: 107). Thus Marshall defined social policy as the use of democratic ‘political power to supersede, supplement, or modify operations of the economic system in order to achieve results which the economic system would not achieve of his own’ (Marshall, 1975: 15). In his first report, Social Insurance and Allied Services, Lord Beveridge saw “freedom from want” to be the pivotal objective of the welfare state (Beveridge, 1942). In his 1945 Full Employment in a Free Society, however, Beveridge came to view employment, active participation, or inclusion in productive work as a key function of being an accepted part of a larger collective identity (Beveridge, 1945). In Beveridge’s participatory view on full employment, social citizenship went beyond the right to a decent income, to include right to live from labor, to combine their income with the recognition of a social function. Jobs benefit people by giving them enhanced opportunities for self-actualization, personal identity, self-esteem, and the feeling of belonging to a community. Inclusion through the labor market remains a cornerstone of every policy strategy of social inclusion. Participating in the labor market is today the most important form of social interaction and, as such, is an indispensable element in achieving social cohesion. In the words of Guenther Schmid: “Not being wanted is worse than being poor” (Schmid, 2008: 3).
We are still the children of the liberal reformers, patching the mechanisms haphazardly bequeathed to postwar societies proud of their supposed uniqueness.
Hugh Heclo
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Begg, I., Draxler, J., & Mortensen, J. (2008). Is social Europe fir for globalisation? A study of the social impact of globalization in the European Union, CEPS, European Commission, Brussels
Bonoli, G. (2005). The politics of the new social policies: Providing coverage against new social risks in mature welfare states. Policy & Politics, 33(3), 431–449
Bonoli, G. (2006). New social risks and the politics of post-industrial social policies. In: K. Armingeon & G. Bonoli (Eds.), The politics of post-industrial welfare states: Adapting post-war social policies to New social Risks (pp. 3–26). London and New York: Routledge.
Bonoli, G., & Taylor-Gooby, P. (2000). European welfare futures: Towards a theory of retrenchment/Giuliano Bonoli, Vic George and Peter Taylor-Gooby (190p.). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Clark G. L., & Whiteside N. (2003). Pension security in the 21st century. Redrawing the Public-Private Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Daly, M. (2000). The gender division of welfare: The impact of the British and German welfare states/Mary Daly (273p.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dyson, K. H. F., & Featherstone, K. (1999). The road to Maastricht: Negotiating economic and monetary union/Kenneth Dyson and Kevin Featherstone (859p.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Esping-Andersen, G. (1985). Politics against markets. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press
Esping-Andersen, G. (1994). Welfare states and the economy. In N. J. Smelser & R. Swedberg (Eds.), The handbook of economic sociology. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 712–732
Esping-Andersen, G. (Ed.). (1996). Welfare states in transition. London: Sage;
Esping-Andersen, G. (1999). Social foundations of post-industrial economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Esping-Andersen, G. (2005). Putting the horse in front of the cart: Towards a social model for mid-century Europe. Gøsta Esping-Andersen, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Esping-Andersen, G., & Sarasa, S. (2002). The generational conflict reconsidered, Journal of European Social Policy, 12(1), 5–21.
Esping-Andersen, G., Gallie D., Hemerijck, A., & Myles, J. (2002), Why we need a new welfare state. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fajertag G., & Pochet, P. (2000). Social pacts in Europe/edited by Giuseppe Fajertag and Philippe Pochet – Brussels: European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) (195p.). Brussels: Observatoire Social Européen (OSE), 1997.
Ferrera, M. (2005). The boundaries of welfare: European integration and the new spatial politics of solidarity. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming).
Ferrera, M., & Gualmini, E. (2000). Italy: Rescue from without? In F. W. Scharpf & V. A. Schmidt (Eds.), Welfare and work in the open economy, Volume II. Diverse responses to common challenges. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ferrera, M., Hemerijck, A., & Rhodes, M. (2000). The future of social Europe: Recasting work and welfare in the new economy. Oeiras: Celta Editora.
Ferrera, M., & Hemerijck, A. (2003). Recalibrating Europe’s welfare regimes. In J. Zeitlin & D. M. Trubek (Eds.), Governing work and welfare in the new economy: European and American experiments. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Flora, P. (1986). Growth to limits: The western European welfare states since world war II. (Vols. 1–4). Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.
Fox, L., & Palmer, E. (1999). New approaches to multi-pillar pension systems: What in the world is going on? World Bank.
Hemerijck, A., & Schludi, M. (2000). Sequences of policy failures and effective policy responses, in F. W. Scharpf & V. Schmidt (Eds.), Welfare and work in the open economy – from vulnerability to competitiveness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Huber, E., & Stephens, J. D. (2001). Development and crisis of the welfare state. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Immergut, E. M., Anderson, K. M., & Schulze, I. (2007). The handbook of pension politics in western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jenson, J., & Saint-Martin, D. (2003). New routes to social cohesion? Citizenship and the social investment state. The Canadian Journal of Sociology, 28, 77–100.
Korthouwer, G. (forthcoming). Party politics as We knew it? Electoral failure, intraparty dynamics and welfare reforms in continental Europe. Dissertation. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.
Klammer, U. (2007). SOZIALES – INTERNATIONALES – Europäische Sozialstaaatlichkeit – Entwicklung, Koordination und Gestaltung von Sozialsystemen in der Europäischen Union. Soziale Sicherheit: Zeitschrift für Sozialpolitik: die sozialpolitische Monatschrift der Gewerkschaften, 56, 285–289.
Korpi, W. (1983). The democratic class struggle. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Levy, J. (1999). Vice into virtue? Progressive politics and welfare reform in continental Europe. Politics and Society, 27(2), 239–273.
Leibfried, S., & pierson, P. (2000). Social policy. In H. Wallace & W. Wallace (Eds.), Policy making in the European union, (4th edn., pp. 267–291) Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lynch, J. (2005Age in the welfare state: The origins of social spending on pensioners, workers, and children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marshall, T. H. (1950). Citizenship and social class and other essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Martin, A., & Ross, G. (2004). Euros and Europeans: Monetary integration and the European model of society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. (1981). The welfare state in crisis: an account of the Conference on Social Policies in the 1980s, OECD, Paris, 20–23 October 1981.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (1994). The OECD jobs study: evidence and explanations/Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, Paris.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2008). Growing unequal?: income distribution and poverty in OECD countries/Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, Paris.
Palme, J. (2005). Features of the Swedish pension reform. The Japanese Journal of Social Security Policy, 4(1), 42–53.
Pierson, P. (1998), Irristesistible forces, immovable objects: Post-industrial welfare states confront permanent austerity. Journal of European Public Policy, 5(4), 539–560
Pierson, P. (Ed.). (2001). The new politics of the welfare state. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ruggie, J. (1982). International regimes, transactions, and change: Embedded liberalism in the postwar economic order. International Organization, 36, 379–415.
Scharpf, F. W. (2003). WRR lecture De vitaliteit van de nationale staat in het Europa van de 21e eeuw/lectures uitgesproken door: F. W. Scharpf, H. A. F. M. O. van Mierlo. – Den Haag: Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid, 52p.
Scharpf, F. W., & Schmidt, V. A. (Eds.) (2000). Welfare and work in the open economy (2 Volumes). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schmid, G. (2008). Full employment in Europe: Managing labour market transitions and risks. Glos: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Schmidt, V. A. (2000). Values and discourse in the politics of welfare state adjustment. In Fritz W. Scharpf & Vivien A. Schmidt (Eds.), Welfare and work in the open economy. Vol. 1: From vulnerability to competitiveness. Oxford: Osford University Press.
Stiller, S. (2007). Innovative agents versus immovable objects: The role of ideational leadership in german welfare state reforms. Dissertation. Nijmegen: University of Nijmegen.
Taylor-Gooby, P. (Ed.). (2004). New risks, new welfare. The transformation of the European welfare state. Oxford: Oxford university Press.
Van Gerven, M. (2008). Reforming social security rights in Europe; A study of path-dependent but not predetermined change. Helsinki: Social Insurance Institution Finland.
Van Kersbergen, K. (1995). Social capitalism: A study of christian democracy and the welfare state. London: Routledge.
Weishaupt, J. T. (2008). The emergence of a new labor market paradigm? Analyzing continuity and change in an integrating Europe. Dissertation. Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Zeitlin, J., Pochet, P., & Magnusson, L. (2005). The open method of co-ordination in action. The European employment and social inclusion strategies. P.I.E.-Peter Lang.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hemerijck, A. (2009). In Search of a New Welfare State in Europe: An International Perspective. In: The Welfare State in Post-Industrial Society. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0066-1_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0066-1_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-0065-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-0066-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)