European Welfare States: Neoliberal Retrenchment, Developmental Reinforcement or Plural Evolutions

Abstract

In Western Europe the welfare state was part of the post-World War II social settlement during the so-called trente glorieuses , but with the oil crises during the 1970s it became contested, and in 1981 OECD declared the welfare state to be in crisis. This was the beginning of a neoliberal turn in politics across the globe. Looking back at the development from 2011, however, a very complex picture emerges from the social science literature. Crudely, political economy has had a tendency to view the changes within post-industrial welfare states as indeed going down a liberal road of retrenchment, privatisation and marketisation. Thus, Jasmin Lorch entitled a paper “The Neoliberal Retreat of the Welfare State in Europe and the Developing World” and began by stating that “due to budget constraints most European countries have been experiencing some form of the retreat of the welfare state since the early 80s. Partly in reaction to this neoliberal tendency … ” (2007; see also Harvey 2005; Ryner 2008). Differently, part of the political science literature has pointed to welfare states’ resilience to change (Esping-Andersen 1996; Pierson 1994; Starke 2006). Yet the majority of comparative, institutional, sociologically oriented literature has pointed to various degrees of changes – such as recalibrating, recasting, renewing, or reforming of welfare states – and concluded that these changes have led to a survival of the welfare state (Bolukbasi 2009; Clasen 2000; Clegg 2007; Drahoukoupil 2007; Ferrera and Rhodes 2000; Ferrera, Hemerijck, and Rhodes 2000; Kuhnle and Alestalo 2000; Leibfried and Obinger 2000).