De Gruyter Handbook of Contemporary Welfare States

Welfare States have evolved and developed over now close to the last 150 years, although not in all countries at all times in the same direction implying that they are still very diverse. There was a time of golden growth of the welfare states shortly after the second world war, and then after the oil-price shock in 1th 1970’s has, at least since OECD’s pathbreaking book been argued to be in crisis. This has been followed up with discussions of dismantling of the welfare states , and continued after the financial crisis as with further changes, often under the label of austerity and retrenchment.

Over the year’s elements either expected to have or having an impact on the development has been many and varied. The elements have, for the same reasons, not been similar across countries and welfare states. However, there are some common traits that have and can be expected to influence contemporary welfare states development also in the years to come. This includes aspects of globalisation, regionalisation, new technology, demography, voter’s expectation and re-structuring of societies. There are however also new challenges to welfare states. The financial crisis showed the vulnerability of welfare states economic systems, but also that the ability to have a stable economy influences the options and ability to continue and be able to afford a welfare state. The recent COVID19 crisis has showed the possible double pressure of welfare states, including if there are strong challenges in several areas at the same time - in this case health and economy then a strong pressure on the sustainability of the welfare state is at play. This combined with the increasing inequality has implied both economic and political problems in a number of countries, and thereby creating new variants of the existing and possible crises in the future. These crises, including the assessment of whether it is in fact a crisis, may vary according to ideas, but also how the individual country is positioned in relation to solving it. At the same time, a number of the aspects mentioned before continues to be possible threats and pressures on welfare states - such as demographic change and the development of new technology. Possible topics is described later.

This book thus takes the "temperature" of welfare states, while also trying to assess the strength of the challenges for different types of welfare states/regimes. It analyses and compares several welfare state models - Nordic; Continental; Liberal, including the US; Southern-Europe; Eastern-Europe; China; South-East Asia - and also points to future opportunities.