Baldwin- The Welfare State for Historians

Question 1

What does he say about Andersen

Answer 1

• he attacked the functionalist birds-eye approach to social policy that saw all nations passing through the crucible of industrialization or modernization and emerging willy-nilly as welfare states of one stripe or another.
• he did not deny that all industrialized nations have social policies of some sort but argued that there were as many differences among them as similarities.

Question 2

summarise the three welfare states as argued by Anderson

Answer 2

The liberal type personified by the United States and Australia guarantees only minimal and often means-tested benefits and relies on the market for further protection.

The conservative and corporatist welfare state, as in Germany, France and Austria, does not suffer the laissez-faire trepidations vis-a-vis state intervention of the liberal countries. It sees its role as the insurance broker of the nation, but at the same time as it excludes the market from social provision it makes sure that the statutory welfare system reflects the status and income inequalities of
civil society.

Finally, the social democratic systems of Scandinavia banish the market from the realm of welfare and seek to ensure an equality at the highest common denominator of treatment for all citizens.

These paths have been created for a variety of reasons: the nature of class mobilization; the different political coalitions that emerged in each cluster of welfare states; and, finally, the institutional legacy of first decisions taken in social
legislation that cemented loyalties to particular ways of doing things

Question 3

How has Francis Castles contributed to the historiography surrounding the welfare state?

Answer 3

He adds to Andersen by proposing further types of welfare states, including the radical welfare state, and looks at the peculiarities of each welfare state, such as the “domestic defence” in Australia. He treats them the same as nations all variations of one common theme. This is done in his book The Cambridge Economic History of Europe.

Question 4

What is the foundation of this historgiography?

Answer 4

Francois Ewald’s L’etat providence
Abram de Swaan in care of the state

both provide historical background on the emergence of the welfare state.