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A Long Goodbye to Bismarck?: The Politics of Welfare Reform in Continental Europe (Changing Welfare States)
Author(s): Bruno Palier (Editor)
- Publisher: Routledge
- Publication Date: May 18, 2010
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 456 pages
- ISBN-10: 908964234X
- ISBN-13: 9789089642349
Book Description
This admirably researched study provides an exhaustive comparative account of all welfare reforms in continental Europe in the past three decades, covering Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Contrary to widespread assumptions, all those countries have implemented important structural reforms of their welfare systems. These reforms must be understood as the culmination of a long reform trajectory analysed in detail in this book with the tools of comparative historical institutionalism. The author demonstrates that Bismarckian welfare systems have lost their encompassing capacities, partly turned to employment-friendliness, and weakened the strongest elements of their male breadwinner bias. To do so, they have developed dual welfare systems that differentiate between the protection of the core workers and the assistance and activation of the "atypical" ones. A comprehensive work that lends itself perfectly to course use.
About the Author
Bruno Palier is CNRS researcher at the Fondation nationale des sciences politiques in Paris and scientific coordinator of the European Network of Excellence, Reconciling Work and Welfare in Europe (RECWOWE).
