7 - Social policy in an era of austerity

Summary

The resurgence of conservatism in the late 1970s marked an important development for western industrial democracies. The electoral triumphs of Reagan and Thatcher signaled a juncture of economic, social, and political pressures that challenged the Keynesian settlement of the postwar period. The resulting clash between committed reform administrations and an established set of institutions, organizations, and policies led to a decade of turbulent domestic politics in both Britain and the United States. This chapter suggests why, within this turbulence, the welfare state remained an area of relative calm.

THE SOURCES OF PROGRAMMATIC DURABILITY

Both Reagan and Thatcher found that cutting social programs posed an extraordinary challenge. If they were able to achieve occasional successes, the more frequent outcome was one of initially aggressive efforts giving way to embarrassed retreat. On the whole, welfare state programs demonstrated considerable resilience during the tenures of both leaders. The proximate reasons for this pattern were suggested in Chapter 1. Unlike many parts of the conservative agenda, the pursuit of welfare state retrenchment was an unpopular undertaking. Imposing losses on specific groups usually generated such a vigorous response and such limited political benefits that governments were forced to adopt a more cautious posture, picking their opportunities for reform carefully and shifting their emphasis to other policy goals.

Nevertheless, if the immediate causes of programmatic stability are evident, it remains true that some programs proved vulnerable.