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Welfare state regimes and the evolution of liberalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Curt J. Pankratz
Curt J. Pankratz*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Canada
*
*Email: c.pankratz@uwinnipeg.ca
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Abstract

This paper argues that the concept of the liberal welfare state within welfare state regimes discourse fails to account for some important aspects of the historical development of liberalism. It is argued that two key aspects of liberalism have been neglected. First, that liberalism essentially arose in opposition to ascribed status, seeking to replace it with a form of “achieved” status. Second, that a major stream of historical liberalism sought to equalize individual opportunity by suggesting that the state should provide some basic social and economic supports to individuals in need. This paper uses OECD health data to identify welfare state clusters based on the measurement of welfare (rather than neo)liberalism. The emerging cluster model is then compared with other welfare state regime typologies with regard to its ability to predict important social and political outcomes. The paper concludes that the emerging “welfare-liberal” typology may be a better predictor of certain social and political outcomes than other regimes configurations, indicating the usefulness of considering alternative aspects of liberalism when examining welfare state regimes.

Keywords

social policywelfare statehealth caresocial classliberalism
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , October 2014 , pp. 217 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Taylor & Francis

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