The Crisis Imperative : Crisis Rhetoric and Welfare State Reform in Belgium and the Netherlands in the Early 1990s

Abstract

Processes of socio-economic change – individualising society and globalising eco- nomics and politics – cause large problems for modern welfare states. Welfare states, organised on the level of nation-states and built on one or the other form of national solidarity, are increasingly confronted with – for instance – fiscal prob- lems, difficulties to control costs, and the unintended use of welfare programs. Such problems – generally speaking – raise the issue of sustainability because they tend to undermine the legitimacy of the programs of the welfare state and in the end induce the necessity of change, be it the complete abolishment of programs, re- trenchment of programs, or attempts to preserve programs by modernising them. This series of studies on welfare states focuses on the changing institutions and programs of modern welfare states. These changes are the product of external pressures on welfare states, for example because of the economic and political con- sequences of globalisation or individualisation, or result from the internal, politi- cal or institutional dynamics of welfare arrangements. By studying the development of welfare state arrangements in different coun- tries, in different institutional contexts, or by comparing developments between countries or different types of welfare states, this series hopes to enlarge the body of knowledge on the functioning and development of welfare states and their pro- grams.