In The Politics of the Welfare State in Turkey, author Erdem Yörük provides a politics-based explanation for the post-1980 transformation of the Turkish welfare system, in which poor relief policies have replaced employment-based social security. This book is one of the results of Yörük’s European Research Council-funded project, which compares the political dynamics in several emerging markets in order to develop a new political theory of welfare in the global south. As such, this book is an ambitious analytical and empirical contribution to understanding the causes of a sweeping shift in the nature of state welfare provision in Turkey during the recent decades—part of a global trend that extends far beyond Turkey. Most scholarship about Turkey and similar countries has explained this shift toward poor relief as a response to demographic and structural changes including aging populations, the decline in the economic weight of industry, and the informalization of labor, while ignoring the effect of grassroots politics. In order to overcome these theoretical shortages in the literature, the book revisits concepts of political containment and political mobilization from the earlier literature on the mid-twentieth-century welfare state development and incorporates the effects of grassroots politics in order to understand the recent welfare system shift as it materialized in Turkey, where a new matrix of political dynamics has produced new large-scale social assistance programs.

Originally published in 1994 The Politics of the Welfare State looks at how the privatization and marketization of education, health and welfare services in the past decade have produced a concept of welfare that is markedly different from that envisaged when the welfare state was initially created. Issues of class, gender and ethnicity are explored in chapters that are wide ranging but closely linked. The contributors are renowned academics and policy-makers, including feminist and welfare historians, highly regarded figures in social policy, influential critics of recent educational reforms and key analysts of current reform in the health sector.

This theoretically innovative book shows how democratic social movements can use the welfare state to challenge domination in society.

Publisher Description

A comparative analysis of the political attitudes, values, aspirations, and identities of citizens in advanced industrial societies, this book focusses on the different ways in which social policies and national politics affect personal opinions on justice, political responsibility, and the overall trustworthiness of politicians.

For decades, political observers and pundits have characterized the Islamic Republic of Iran as an ideologically rigid state on the verge of collapse, exclusively connected to a narrow social base. In A Social Revolution, Kevan Harris convincingly demonstrates how they are wrong. Previous studies ignore the forceful consequences of three decades of social change following the 1979 revolution. Today, more people in the country are connected to welfare and social policy institutions than to any other form of state organization. In fact, much of Iran’s current political turbulence is the result of the success of these social welfare programs, which have created newly educated and mobilized social classes advocating for change. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted in Iran between 2006 and 2011, Harris shows how the revolutionary regime endured though the expansion of health, education, and aid programs that have both embedded the state in everyday life and empowered its challengers. This first serious book on the social policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran opens a new line of inquiry into the study of welfare states in countries where they are often overlooked or ignored.

This book offers a careful examination of the politics of social policy in an era of austerity and conservative governance. Focusing on the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Pierson provides a compelling explanation for the welfare state's durability and for the few occasions where each government was able to achieve significant cutbacks. The programmes of the modern welfare state - the 'policy legacies' of previous governments - generally proved resistant to reform. Hemmed in by the political supports that have developed around mature social programmes, conservative opponents of the welfare state were successful only when they were able to divide the supporters of social programmes, compensate those negatively affected, or hide what they were doing from potential critics. The book will appeal to those interested in the politics of neo-conservatism as well as those concerned about the development of the modern welfare state. It will attract readers in the fields of comparative politics, public policy, and political economy.

The welfare states of the affluent democracies now stand at the centre of political discussion and social conflict. In these path-breaking essays, an international team of leading analysts rejects simplistic claims about the impact of economic 'globalization'. Economic, demographic, and social pressures on the welfare state are very real, but many of the most fundamental challenges have little to do with globalization. Nor do theauthors detect signs of a convergence of national social policies towards an American-style lowest common denominator. The contemporary politics of the welfare state takes shape against a backdrop of both intense pressures for austerity and enduring popularity. Thus in most of the affluent democracies, the politics of social policy centre on the renegotiation, restructuring, and modernization of the post-war social contract ratherthan its dismantling. The authors examine a wide range of countries and public policies arenas, including health care, pensions, and labour markets. They demonstrate how different national settings affect whether, and on what terms, centrist efforts to restructure the welfare state can succeed.

Kees van Kersbergen and Barbara Vis explain the political opportunities and constraints of welfare state reform in advanced democracies.

This Very Short Introduction discusses the necessity of welfare states in modern capitalist societies. Situating social policy in an historical, sociological, and comparative perspective, David Garland brings a new understanding to familiar debates, policies, and institutions.