Peter Taylor-Gooby

Current Directions in Risk Research: New Developments in Psychology and Sociology

This article reviews the main approaches to risk in psychology and sociology and considers recent developments. It shows that research continues from a wide range of perspectives. Some developments in psychological thinking have recently acknowledged the importance of the cultural framing of risk perceptions and responses and the positive power of emotions to manage uncertainties, while some streams of work in sociology have moved toward more individualist approaches. These converging processes open opportunities for cross-fertilization and for using insights from both disciplines in the development of research.

Markets and Motives Trust and Egoism in Welfare Markets

Enthusiasm for the expansion of markets in welfare reflects the currency of assumptions derived fi om rational choice theory among policy-makers. This article reviews recent evidence from the ESRCs Economic Beliefs and Behaviour programme that calls into question the basic tenet of the rational choice approach - that individual choices are driven by instrumental rationality - and argues that welfare markets require a normative framework in which trust plays an important role. Experimental evidence from recent work in economic psychology indicates that individuals often display a level of trust in market interactions that is hard to explain on the basis of simple rationality, but that such trust is fragile and easily undermined by egoistic action. Lack of attention to the normative issues which the rational choice approach fails to capture may lead to the design of markets which are inefficient in meeting the aims of policy-makers and which deplete the moral legacy on which many welfare markets in practice depend.

Is the future American? Or, can left politics preserve European welfare states from erosion through growing 'Racial' diversity?

The welfare state is the distinctive contribution of Europe to the modern world. Other places do market capitalism better, and democracy, art and culture at least as well. However, the future of the European welfare state is in question, as a result of economic globalisation, pressures from population ageing and other social changes and the dominance of an EU primarily committed to creating an open market to rival that of the US. An important recent critique of the welfare state project argues that social cohesion and diversity are simply incompatible - with the implication, that as Europe grows more diverse, welfare states will wither. An influential variant of this argument uses statistical modelling to support the argument that greater ethnic diversity accounts for the failure of the US to develop political support for a welfare state on European lines (and implies that Europes future is American). This article demonstrates that the model used fails to take into account the significance of left politics in European countries. The evidence is that the left substantially counteracts the impact of greater diversity on welfare states in Europe. The case that increased migration will undermine popular commitment to social spending is not proven.

Postmodernism and Social Policy: A Great Leap Backwards?

Postmodernism claims that the universalist themes of modern society (society-wide political ideologies, the nation-state, the theme of rational planning in government policy, the large-scale public or private sector bureaucracy) are obsolete, to be replaced by a plural interest in diversity and choice. These ideas have strong implications for both the theory of social policy, which typically stresses universal themes of inequality and privilege, and the practice of social policy, which relies on rational analysis to inform society-wide government provision. This article suggests that such an approach ignores the significance of market liberalism and the associated trends to inequality, privatisation, retrenchment and the regulation of the poorest groups. From this perspective, postmodernism functions as an ideological smoke-screen, preventing us from recognising some of the most important trends in modern social policy. It is unfortunate if, at a time when the results of increasing inequality are everywhere apparent, one of the dominant approaches in social science obscures the issue.

THE NEW WELFARE STATE SETTLEMENT IN EUROPE

ABSTRACT The post-war settlement rested on confidence that state welfare combined with neo-Keynesian economic management supported economic progress and enhanced social stability. New approaches from the 1970s onwards inspired by monetarism saw extensive state welfare as a damaging economic burden. The welfare settlement that is currently emerging in European debates argues that a welfare state centred on social investment, combined with appropriate de-regulation and use of social benefits to support employment mobility can again contribute to economic and social objectives in a virtuous spiral of growth and justice. In practice, however, most European states have been far more successful in what might broadly be called negative activation (less regulation, restrictions on passive benefits and targeted help for high-risk groups), than in investment to enhance the knowledge base and improve mobility. The differences between the new social investment welfare state and more limited de-regulated welfare system seem to be less marked in practice than the tenor of policy debate implies.

The Silver Age of the Welfare State: Perspectives on Resilience

The circumstances which favoured the expansion of state welfare in the post-war ‘golden age’ – secure growth, full employment, moderate welfare needs and national politico-economic autonomy – have been reversed in the ‘silver age’ of labour market restructuring, demographic transition and economic globalisation. Most researchers argue that the European welfare settlement is (so far) surprisingly resilient in the face of current challenges. This article argues that analysis of welfare states has been approached from two basic directions – quantitative analysis and comparative case study – and that each approach has its merits and difficulties. Using the example of pensions policy it show that quantitative methods tend to produce findings which place greater emphasis on continuity and resilience, while case studies focus attention more on political processes. The latter approach is likely to provide greater insight into shifts that may lead to new policy directions in the immediate future. The picture presented by the quantitative method tends to predominate in comparative cross-national studies of the response of welfare states to current pressures, and this may overemphasise stability and resilience against discontinuity and change.

Market Means and Welfare Ends: The UK Welfare State Experiment

The UK is distinctive in having the most liberal market-oriented welfare system in the European Union and the most majoritarian governmental system, capable of rapid and decisive action. The 1997 New Labour government abandoned the traditional neo-Keynesian/social democratic approach of the party and embarked on a programme of market-oriented welfare state reform. This reflects many aspects of policy direction (pursued more gradually and under different circumstances) elsewhere in Europe, and advocated in the European Employment Strategy and OECD proposals. The UK is thus a suitable test case to assess the impact of a new departure in welfare policy: welfare ends through market means. This paper shows that New Labour has achieved real successes in mobilising the workforce, broadening opportunities for women and reducing poverty. However, the approach faces intractable problems in stimulating and regulating private providers of welfare, and limitations in the extent to which it is able to reduce poverty among those of working age who are not in the labour market. These result from the incompatibility between welfare and market objectives: secure, adequate incomes for all, and work incentives for citizens and market freedom for providers.

Sustaining State Welfare in Hard Times: Who Will Foot the Bill?

Recent studies of how European welfare systems are responding to current pressures agree that welfare states display remarkable resilience. They are being reformed rather than dismantled. New policies are concerned to contain costs and to promote activation, stressing the contribution of welfare to economic competitiveness. Will people support cost constraint? This paper analyses attitude survey data from the 1980s and 1990s to show that approval of the main welfare services is high, but, in contrast to the findings of earlier studies, there is now some evidence of declining support. Attitudes are not structured according to the accounts of the ‘new politics’ of welfare (which imply that each regime will produce its own pattern of interests in relation to the groups whose interests are entrenched by current arrangements) but reflect broad lines of income, age and gender, cross-cutting national differences. There is little support for cuts in social services, but an equally low level of willingness to pay the extra taxes and social contributions required to maintain current standards of provision in the face of rising pressures on welfare. An agenda of activation is likely to prove more acceptable politically than one of cost constraint in all regimes. The implication is that European welfare states face a straitened future, between increasing demands and constrained resources, which may lead public opinion support to dwindle further.

The double crisis of the welfare state and what we can do about it

The NHS, education, social care, local government, employment services, social housing and benefits for the poor face major challenges from a government determined to entrench a radical and divisive liberalism permanently in British public life. This book analyses the immediate challenges from headlong cuts that bear most heavily on women, families and the poor, and from a root-and-branch restructuring which will fragment and privatise the bulk of public services. It sets this in the context of escalating inequalities and the longer-term pressures from population ageing. It demonstrates that a more humane and generous welfare state that will build inclusiveness is possible by combining policies that limit child poverty, promote more equal outcomes from health care and education, introduce a greater contributory element into social benefits, invest in better child and elder care and address low wages and workplace rights. It shows that such policies are affordable because they follow the long-term trajectory of welfare state spending across the UK and other developed countries. It analyses the political forces that can be marshalled to support these shifts and shows that, with political leadership, the welfare state can attract mass support.

Ideas and welfare state reform in Western Europe

List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgements Preface Notes on Contributors Ideas and Policy Change P.Taylor-Gooby Paradigm Shifts, Power Resources and Labour Market Reform P.Taylor-Gooby Policy Paradigms and Long-Term Care: Convergence or Continuing Difference? V.Timonen The Myth of an Adult Worker Society: New Policy Discourses in European Welfare States T.P.Larsen Changing Ideas on Pensions: Accounting for Differences in the Spread of the Multipillar Paradigm in Five EU Social Insurance Countries F.Boenker Towards Activation? Social Assistance Reforms and Discourses A.Aust & A.Arriba Current Employment Policy Paradigms in the UK, Sweden and Germany J.Kananen The Europeanisation of Welfare Paradigm Shifts and Social Policy Reforms L.Moreno & B.Palier Index