Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 June 2011
This essay seeks to lay the foundation for an understanding of welfare state retrenchment. Previous discussions have generally relied, at least implicitly, on a reflexive application of theories designed to explain welfare state expansion. Such an approach is seriously flawed. Not only is the goal of retrenchment (avoiding blame for cutting existing programs) far different from the goal of expansion (claiming credit for new social benefits), but the welfare state itself vastly alters the terrain on which the politics of social policy is fought out. Only an appreciation of how mature social programs create a new politics can allow us to make sense of the welfare state's remarkable resilience over the past two decades of austerity. Theoretical argument is combined with quantitative and qualitative data from four cases (Britain, the United States, Germany, and Sweden) to demonstrate the shortcomings of conventional wisdom and to highlight the factors that limit or facilitate retrenchment success.
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38 A recent draft paper by Stephens, Huber, and Ray presents the first sophisticated statistical analysis of retrenchment, utilizing newly assembled data that allow investigation of fairly detailed programmatic changes over a large number of countries. There are important limitations: much of the programmatic data end in 1986 or 1987; many programs are not covered; and the still-small sample allows the statistical testing of only a few broad hypotheses (essentially, the impact of partisanship) about the politics of program change. The results reported strongly support most of the analysis presented here, although they view Thatcher as more successful than I do. Stephens, John D., Huber, Evelyne, and Ray, Leonard, “The Welfare State in Hard Times” (Paper presented at the conference on the “Politics and Political Economy of Contemporary Capitalism,” University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, September 1994)Google Scholar.
39 Establishing what constitutes “radical” reform is no easy task. For instance, it is impossible to say definitively when a series of quantitative cutbacks amounts to a qualitative shift in the nature of programs. Roughly though, that point is reached when because of policy reform a program can no longer play its traditional role (e.g., when pension benefits designed to provide a rough continuation of the retiree's earlier standard of living are clearly unable to do so).
40 This broad conclusion is echoed for a much larger number of cases in Stephens, Huber, and Ray (fh. 38).
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