Since the early 1990s, European welfare states have undergone substantial changes, in terms of objectives, areas of intervention, and instruments. Traditional programmes, such as old age pensions have been curtailed throughout the continent, while new functions have been taken up. At present, welfare states are expected to help non-working people back into employment, to complement work income for the working poor, to reconcile work and family life, to promote gender equality, to support child development, and to provide social services for an ageing society. The welfare settlement that is emerging at the beginning of the 21st century is nonetheless very different in terms of functions and instruments from the one inherited from the last century. This book seeks to offer a better understanding of the new welfare settlement, and to analyze the factors that have shaped the recent transformation.
List of Figures ; List of Tables ; List of Contributors ; Introduction ; The Politics of the 'New' Welfare States: Analysing Reforms in Western Europe ; PART I: PERSPECTIVES ON THE NEW WELFARE STATE ; 2. A New Politics for the Social Investment Perspective: Objectives, Instruments, and Areas of Intervention in Welfare Regimes ; 3. The Governance of Economic Uncertainty: Beyond the 'New Social Risks' Analysis ; 4. Stress-Testing the New Welfare State ; PART II: THE THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF THE NEW WELFARE STATE ; 5. Blame Avoidance and Credit Claiming Revisited ; 6. The Politics of Old and New Social Policies ; PART III: TRAJECTORIES OF CHANGE ; 7. Adapting Labour Market Policy to a Transformed Employment Structure: The Politics of 'Triple Integration' ; 8. Childcare Politics in the 'New' Welfare State: Class, Religion and Gender in the Shaping of Political Agendas ; 9. Europe's Transformations Towards a Renewed Pension System ; 10. Insider-Outsider Dynamics and the Reform of Job Security Legislation ; PART IV: CONTINENT-WIDE PERSPECTIVES ; 11. Turning Vice into Vice: How Bismarckian Welfare States Have Gone from Unsustainability to Dualisation ; 12. The New Spatial Politics of Welfare in the EU ; Conclusion ; 13. Multidimensional Transformations in the Early 21st Century Welfare States
