The book provides a systematic evaluation of the role played by business in the development of the modern welfare state. When and why have employers supported the development of institutions of social insurance that provide benefits to workers for various employment-related risks? What factors explain the variation in the social policy preferences of employers? What is the relative importance of business and labor-based organization in the negotiation of a new social policy? This book studies these critical questions, by examining the role played by German and French producers in eight social policy reforms spanning nearly a century of social policy development. The analysis demonstrates that major social policies were adopted by cross-class alliances comprising labor-based organizations and key sectors of the business community.

“This book about risk and disaster—and how they get amplified—is fascinating and hugely important as we face an ever-more-turbulent world.” —Rebecca Solnit, award-winning author of A Field Guide to Getting Lost The first decade of the twenty-first century saw a remarkable number of large-scale disasters. Earthquakes in Haiti and Sumatra underscored the serious economic consequences that catastrophic events can have on developing countries, while 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina showed that first world nations remain vulnerable. The Social Roots of Risk argues against the widespread notion that cataclysmic occurrences are singular events, driven by forces beyond our control. Instead, Kathleen Tierney contends that disasters of all types—be they natural, technological, or economic—are rooted in common social and institutional sources. Put another way, risks and disasters are produced by the social order itself—by governing bodies, organizations, and groups that push for economic growth, oppose risk-reducing regulation, and escape responsibility for tremendous losses when they occur. Considering a wide range of historical and looming events—from a potential mega-earthquake in Tokyo that would cause devastation far greater than what we saw in 2011, to BP’s accident history prior to the 2010 blowout—Tierney illustrates trends in our behavior, connecting what seem like one-off events to illuminate historical patterns. Like risk, human resilience also emerges from the social order, and this book makes a powerful case that we already have a significant capacity to reduce the losses that disasters produce. A provocative rethinking of the way that we approach and remedy disasters, The Social Roots of Risk leaves readers with a better understanding of how our own actions make us vulnerable to the next big crisis—and what we can do to prevent it. “Brilliant . . . Drawing on a trove of timely case studies, Tierney analyses how factors such as speculative finance and rampant development allow natural and economic blips to tip more easily into catastrophe.” —Nature

`As the study of social policy comes increasingly to address issues of theorising welfare in a period of fundamental social change, Culpitt′s book is especially welcome in helping to update the reader in many of the debates and explorations surrounding social change, in particular those instigated by Foucault some two decades ago - his work on "governmentality" is central to Culpitt′s book - and by Beck on risk more recently. The book also serves as a useful introduction to other key thinkers influencing social theory today whose work also addresses issues central to social policy, such as Giddens, Honneth and Turner′ - Martin Hewitt, University of Hertfordshire This book examines the notion of risk in relation to social policy. It takes ideas about risk (as expressed by sociologists such as Ulrich Beck in Risk Society), and applies them to recent changes in welfare. The author shows neo-liberals have used various aspects of risk to attack welfare dependency, and how various rhetoric′s of risk have been used to reshape contemporary politics. Social Policy and Risk makes a major contribution to our understanding of contemporary welfare politics.

This new study assesses the welfare state to ask key questions and draw new conclusions about its place in modern society. It shows how the welfare states that we have inherited from the early post-war years had one main objective: to protect the income of the male breadwinner. Today, however, massive social change, in particular the shift from industrial to post-industrial societies and economies, have resulted in new demands being put on welfare states. These demands originate from situations that are typical of the new family and labour market structures that have become widespread in western countries since the 1970s and 1980s, characterised by the clear prevalence of service employment and by the massive entry of women in the labour market. Against this background, this book: * presents a precise and clear definition of 'new social risks'. A concept being increasingly used in welfare state literature. * focuses on the groups that are mostly exposed to new social risks (women, the young, the low-skilled) in order to study their political behaviour. * assesses policymaking processes that can lead to successful adaptation. It covers key areas such as child care, care for elderly people, adapting pensions to atypical career patterns, active labour market policies, and policy making at the EU level. This book will be of great interest for all students and scholars of politics, sociology and the welfare state in particular.

This unique comparative study looks at efforts to regulate carcinogenic chemicals in several Western democracies, including the United States, and finds marked national differences in how conflicting scientific interpretations and competing political interests are resolved. Whether risk issues are referred to expert committees without public debate or debated openly in a variety of forums, patterns of interaction among experts, policy makers, and the public reflect fundamental features of each country's political culture. "A provocative argument....Poses interesting questions for the sociology of science, especially science produced for public debate."—Contemporary Sociology A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation's Social Science Frontiers Series

Political risk now affects more markets and countries than ever before and that risk will continue to rise. But traditional methods of managing political risk are no longer legitimate or effective. In Tectonic Politics, Nigel Gould-Davies explores the complex, shifting landscape of political risk and how to navigate it. He analyses trends in each form of political risk: the power to destroy, seize, regulate, and tax. He shows how each of these forms reflects a deeper transformation of the global political economy that is reordering the relationship between power, wealth, and values. In a world where everything is political, the craft of engagement is as important as the science of production and the art of the deal. The successful company must integrate that craft—the engager's way of seeing and doing—into strategy and culture. Drawing on a career in academia, business, and diplomacy, Gould-Davies provides corporate leaders, scholars, and engaged citizens with a groundbreaking study of the fastest-rising political risk today. “As tectonic plates shape the earth,” he writes, “so tectonic politics forges its governance.”

Decades into its existence as a foundational aspect of modern political and economic life, the welfare state has become a political cudgel, used to assign blame for ballooning national debt and tout the need for personal responsibility. At the same time, it affects nearly every citizen and permeates daily life—in the form of pension, disability, and unemployment benefits, healthcare and parental leave policies, and more. At the core of that disjunction is the question of how we as a society decide who should get what benefits—and how much we are willing to pay to do so. Probable Justice​ traces a history of social insurance from the eighteenth century to today, from the earliest ideas of social accountability through the advanced welfare state of collective responsibility and risk. At the heart of Rachel Z. Friedman’s investigation is a study of how probability theory allows social insurance systems to flexibly measure risk and distribute coverage. The political genius of social insurance, Friedman shows, is that it allows for various accommodations of needs, risks, financing, and political aims—and thereby promotes security and fairness for citizens of liberal democracies.

A thought-provoking and evocative account that considers both the policies we think of as "health policyand those that we don't, The Political Determinants of Health provides a novel, multidisciplinary framework for addressing the systemic barriers preventing the United States from becoming the healthiest nation in the world.

Government plays a critical role in mitigating individual and collective vulnerability to disaster. Through measures such as disaster relief, infrastructure development, and environmental regulation, public policy is central to making societies more resilient. However, the recent drive to replace public institutions with market mechanisms has challenged governmental efforts to manage collective risk. The contributors to this volume analyze the respective roles of the public and private sectors in the management of catastrophic risk, addressing questions such as: How should homeland security officials evaluate the risk posed by terrorist attacks and natural disasters? Are market-based interventions likely to mitigate our vulnerability to the effects of climate change? What is the appropriate relationship between non-governmental organizations and private security firms in responding to humanitarian emergencies? And how can philanthropic efforts to combat the AIDS crisis ensure ongoing access to life-saving drugs in the developing world? More generally, these essays point to the way thoughtful policy intervention can improve our capacity to withstand catastrophic events. Additional Columbia / SSRC books on the Privatization of Risk and its Implications for Americans Bailouts: Public Money, Private ProfitEdited by Robert E. Wright Health at Risk: America's Ailing Health System-and How to Heal ItEdited by Jacob S. Hacker Laid Off, Laid Low: Political and Economic Consequences of Employment InsecurityEdited by Katherine S. Newman Pensions, Social Security, and the Privatization of RiskEdited by Mitchell A. Orenstein

Barbara Vis is assistant professor in comparative politics at the vu University Amsterdam. A Veni grant from the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research (NWO) supports her current research. --