Multiple and Multi-Dimensional Welfare State Transformations

Abstract

The analyses in this book have shown that we are not witnessing a one-dimensional welfare state transformation that could be easily characterized as a silent surrender or withering away of public responsibility and the triumph of ‘neo-liberalism’. Neither are we witnessing ‘frozen welfare state landscapes’ allowing only minor changes. Moreover, welfare state transformations are very complex processes that cannot be captured and expressed in a simple way; in reality we find multiple and multi-dimensional welfare state transformations. For instance, ‘privatization’ in one policy domain may go along with increased government intervention in another policy domain or ‘privatization’ in one or two modes of public intervention within one policy domain, for instance financing and provision, might be accompanied by an expansion of government intervention in the third mode (regulation). In addition, while some states have clearly expanded overall public financing, as already shown by the aggregate spending data in Chapter 1, other countries have reduced the overall public spending levels, while at the same time allocated more public financial resources to specific policy areas such as social services. Thus the findings of our project are in accordance with the argument put forward by Levy (2006b, p. 27) stating that ‘instead of just expanding or contracting, the state should be understood as evolving, as shifting in its purposes and modes of intervention.’