After Austerity: Welfare State Transformation in Europe after the Great Recession

by Peter Taylor-Gooby (Editor), Benjamin Leruth (Editor), Heejung Chung (Editor)

European welfare states are undergoing profound change, driven by globalization, technical changes, and population ageing. More immediately, the aftermath of the Great Recession and unprecedented levels of immigration have imposed additional pressures. This book examines welfare state transformations across a representative range of European countries and at the EU level, and considers likely new directions in social policy. It reviews the dominant neo-liberal austerity response and discusses social investment, fightback, welfare chauvinism, and protectionism.

It argues that the class solidarities and cleavages that shaped the development of welfare states are no longer powerful. Tensions surrounding divisions between old and young, women and men, immigrants and denizens, and between the winners in a new, more competitive, world and those who feel left behind are becoming steadily more important. European countries have entered a period of political instability and this is reflected in policy directions. Austerity predominates nearly everywhere, but patterns of social investment, protectionism, neo-Keynesian intervention, and fightback vary between countries. The volume identify areas of convergence and difference in European welfare state futures in this up-to-date study - essential reading to grasp the pace and directions of change.

244 pages, Paperback

Published October 10, 2017

About the author

In my day job I'm an academic but I believe that you can only truly understand the issues that matter through your feelings, your imagination and your compassion. That's why I write novels.
My latest “The Immigrant Queen” is about Aspasia, the only woman member of Socrates’ circle, passionate lover of Pericles and author of his speeches, the model for Athene on the Parthenon and the most striking woman in Athens. Then history forgot her.
My earlier novels are "The Baby Auction" and “A Kinder City”, love stories set in a fantasy world where the only rule is the law of the market; "Ardent Justice", a cop fighting for the rights of homeless people in a city dominated by high finance; and "Blood Ties", a father who must struggle against people-traffickers and corrupt politicians to save his bi-polar daughter..
I’ve worked on adventure playgrounds, in a social security office and as a teacher. I love walking, cycling, writing and talking to my children.