The Cold War and Welfare State Development in Industrialized Countries

Klaus Petersen is Professor of Welfare State History at the Danish Center for Welfare Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. His main research area is Danish and Nordic welfare state history. He is the co-editor of Warfare and Welfare (Oxford University Press, 2018), has edited more than 25 books, and been published widely in journals such as Journal of European Social Policy, Social Science History, American Sociologist, and the British Journal of Political Science. He is currently co-leading a large research project on the Family Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.

Herbert Obinger is Professor of Comparative Public Policy and Social Policy at the Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy (SOCIUM), University of Bremen. He is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State (Oxford University Press, 2021), Warfare and Welfare (Oxford University Press, 2018), and co-author of The Political Economy of Privatization in Rich Democracies (Oxford University Press, 2016). He has published more than fifty peer-reviewed articles in journals such as World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, Social Policy & Administration, Politics & Society, Journal of Public Policy, Governance, Journal of European Social Policy, European Journal of Political Research, and the British Journal of Political Science.

Michele Mioni is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Ca' Foscari University in Venice, where he is principal investigator for the project The European Social Model and teaches contemporary history. He is a contemporary historian whose primary research interests concern the history of social policies and the history of labour. His current lines of research scrutinize social policy in the (post-)colonial contexts during the Cold War and the relationship between social policy and European integration. He is also interested in the history of trade unions, and notably how reformist unionists dealt with social security, mutualism and corporatism in Italy and France.

Carina Schmitt is Professor of Policy Analysis at the University of Bamberg in Germany. Her research centres on comparative welfare state research focusing on the legacy of colonialism, exploring both the origins and impacts of social protection, as well as the effects of war on social policies. She is editor of From Colonialism to International Aid: Understanding the Role of External Actors in Social Protection in the Global South (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). She has published peer-reviewed books and articles in journals such as World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, World Development, and European Journal of Political Research.