The Political Economy of Regulating for Welfare: Regulation Preventing Loss of Access to Basic Services in the UK, Sweden, the EU, and Israel

Abstract

What does the state do to prevent consumers from losing access to basic services in the market due to financial hardship, and under what conditions will this occur? Bringing together the literature on regulatory governance and the welfare state, this article compares regulatory regimes that prevent loss of access to services in the UK, Sweden, and Israel in housing credit, electricity, and water, as well as to the electricity and housing credit sectors in the EU, from the early 1990s to the 2010s. The article finds that regulation to address this issue was introduced in all but the Swedish cases. This highlights the significance of the welfare state context in addressing these issues through regulation, as more residual welfare regimes are associated with more social protection through regulation.