Stephan Leibfried

Transformations of the Welfare State gives a new twist to the longstanding debate on the impact of economic globalization on the welfare state. The authors focus on several small, advanced OECD economies in order to assess whether (and how) the welfare state will be able to compete under conditions of an increasingly integrated world economy. Small states can be seen as an 'early warning system' for general trends, because of their dependence on world markets and vulnerability to competitive pressures. The book's theoretical part innovatively integrates the literature on the political economy of small states with more recent research on the impact of globalization on social policy to generate a set of ideal-typical policy scenarios. In the main body of the book, the authors systematically test these scenarios against the experience of four countries: Austria, Denmark, New Zealand, and Switzerland. The comparative, in-depth analysis of reform trajectories since the 1970s in four key policy areas -- pensions, labour market policy, health care, and family policy -- provides, according to the authors, substantial evidence of a new convergence in welfare state patterns. They go on to argue that this amounts to a fundamental transformation of the welfare state from the old Keynesian welfare state positioned 'against the market' to a new set of supply-side policies 'with' and 'for' the market. Yet one of the big lessons to be learned from this timely study is that the transformation does not match the doomsday scenario predicted by neo-classical economists in the 1990s. There is no evidence of a 'race to the bottom' of social expenditure and standards of social protection, nor of a convergence towards a 'liberal' social policy model. Looking to the possible future of the welfare state in an era newly marked by profound uncertainty, the authors sound an optimistic note for states of any size.

In this exciting new book, Rieger and Leibfried argue persuasively for the need to understand developments in welfare and social provision alongside the processes of globalization. In the two decades following the Second World War, the massive expansion of the welfare state system arguably allowed Western governments to expose their societies to uncontrollable external risks associated with the deregulated global economic environment. The authors contend that the combination of changes in welfare and technological innovation provided the necessary conditions for globalization by limiting some of the more harmful effects of economic change. Today, the developed welfare state is in need of reform for various endogenous reasons. If such reforms are to work effectively, however, Rieger and Leibfried claim that governments must take into account the complex ways in which domestic social policy and external economic policy are interconnected. They maintain that the present climate provides a unique opportunity for policy-makers to engage constructively with globalization, warning that failure to think creatively about welfare in this context could result in governments falling back into an unhelpful and out-moded protectionist stance. Drawing on case studies from Germany and the United States, Rieger and Leibfried show how welfare reform has worked in practice in the Western world. Contrasting these findings with the experience of East Asian states, they go on to argue that whilst welfare systems may appear to be similar, they function in different ways depending on the cultural setting. These cultural differences may condition the way in which welfare state regimes are able to mitigate the effects of globalization upon particular societies and economies.

Time and Poverty in Western Welfare States is the English-language adaptation of one of the most important contributions to welfare economics published in recent years. Professors Leibfried and Leisering offer a time-based (dynamic) analysis of the study of poverty, and suggest the need for a radical re-think of conventional theoretical and policy approaches. The core of this study is the empirical analysis of the life course of recipients of 'Social Assistance' in Germany, although the conclusions are put into a wider context of socio-economic and socio-political analysis and comparative observations are made with other countries, notably the USA. Time, Life and Poverty will be of interest to upper-level students, researchers and policy-makers in a wide range of social science disciplines, including: economics, social policy, sociology, psychology and European studies.

Time and Poverty in Western Welfare States is the English language adaptation of one of the most important contributions to welfare economics published in recent years. Professors Leibfried and Leisering offer a time-based (dynamic) analysis of the study of poverty, and suggest the need for a radical rethinking of conventional theoretical and policy approaches. Its methodology will make it of great interest to students and researchers in the social sciences, with particular importance for social policy and welfare economics.

VOM ENDE EINER AUSGRENZUNG? - ARMUT UND SOZIOLOGIE Von Stephan Leibfried und Wolfgang Voges (in Zusammenarbeit mit Lutz Leisering) Die wissenschaftliche Beschaftigung mit Armut ist durch zyklische Schwankungen gekennzeichnet, die vom historischen Kontext bestimmt werden. Als in den 80er Jahren die "neue Armut" infolge Langzeitarbeitslosigkeit in den alten Bundeslandern oeffent- lich aufgegriffen und in den 90er Jahren die Verarmung weiter Bevoelkerungsgruppen in der Transformation der neuen Bundeslander "entdeckt" wurde, bestand die Antwort weniger darin, verstarkt sozialwissenschaftliehe Analysen zu unternehmen - was in kleinerem Umfang gleichwohl geschah -, sondern vor allem darin, die politische wie 1 moralische SkandaIisierung zu intensivieren. In England wie in den USA2 hat sich eine andere Forschungstradition herausge- bildet, die durch eine breite, kontinuierliche und fundierte Beschaftigung in den So- zialwissenschaften - unterstutzt von der Geschichtswis nschaft - mit Armut und 3 Sozialpolitik gekennzeichnet ist. Peter Townsends "Poverty in the United Kingdom" (1979) oder William Julius Wilsons "The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy" (1987) gelten dort als "Klassiker" - als Studien, die wissenschaftliche Standards setzten und auch ausserhalb der Soziologie ein breites Publikum fanden, als Untersuchungen, die nachhaltige Diskussionen und vielfaltige Forschungsinitiativen ausloesten. Eine vergleichbare sozialwissenschaftliche Studie sucht man in Deutschland nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg vergebens.