Beyond the Welfare State?

This book presents an introduction to the general problems of welfare state development. The opening chapters develop a review of competing evaluations of the historical and contemporary roles of the welfare state. This evaluation draws upon the most recent empirical research and gives full weight to an assessment of feminist, ecological and "anti-racist" accounts of welfare state development. The book constructs a distinctive history of the internatinoal growth of welfare states and offers a comprehensive treatment of the so-called "crises of the welfare state". The final chapter engages with recent proponents of welfare pluralism and voluntarism, citizenship and civil society, and develops Chris Pierson's own assessment of future prognoses for the welfare state. Pierson's calculations represent a challenge to both the defenders of welfare state orthodoxy and those who seek to displace it with a "return" to the market.