Long Goodbye to Bismarck?

Bruno Palier is CNRS researcher at the Fondation nationale des sciences politiques in Paris and scientific coordinator of the European Network of Excellence, Reconciling Work and Welfare in Europe (RECWOWE).

“I can think of few edited volumes that manage so successfully to furnish the reader with rich detail and holism all at once. And not least, these contributions to our never-ending concern with the welfare state provide interesting reading, indeed.” Professor Gosta Esping-Andersen Pompeu University, Barcelona "This volume represents the best available scholarship in comparative socio-economic research” “A must read." Fritz Scharpf, Emeritus Director, Max Planck Institute for the Studies of Societies “The contributors to the volume are all recognized experts in their field and provide strictly comparable analyses in their chapters, making this volume a goldmine for comparative welfare state scholars. Palier’s study is certain to become a benchmark for the foreseeable future.” Professor John D. Stephens, Director of the Center for European Studies, University of North Carolina “This volume is the definitive work on the politics of reform in Bismarckian welfare regimes. It features both rich empirical accounts of individual countries and penetrating new comparative analyses. Wonderfully rounded off by synthetic introductory and concluding chapters by Palier, this book is essential reading for any scholar interested in welfare reform – or indeed, in institutional and policy change more generally.” Kathleen Thelen, Ford Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• AANGEPAST DOOR ANNE: Dit boek geeft een uitgebreid overzicht van alle sociale hervormingen die de afgelopen dertig jaar in Europa zijn doorgevoerd. Aan bod komen Duitsland, Oostenrijk, Frankrijk, België, Nederland, Spanje, Italië, Zwitserland, Tsjechië, Hongarije, Polen en Slowakije. Bruno Palier toont aan dat al deze landen vergaande hervormingen hebben doorgevoerd in hun zorgstelsel. De oudere structuren, gebaseerd op de eerste sociale zorgstelsels als die onder Bismarck, voldoen niet meer aan de hedendaagse maatschappelijke behoeften. Zo is met de emancipatie van werknemers de hiërarchische structuur veranderd en is de man niet langer vanzelfsprekend de kostwinner van het gezin. Tegenwoordig hebben veel landen een duaal systeem dat onderscheid maakt tussen bescherming van goedfunctionerende burgers en de ondersteuning en motivatie van ‘atypische’ deelnemers aan de samenleving. Bruno Palier is onderzoeker aan de Fondation nationale des sciences politiques in Parijs en wetenschappelijk coördinator van de European Network of Excellence, Reconciling Work and Welfare in Europe (RECWOWE). During the 2000s, all continental European countries implemented important structural reforms of their welfare systems (a shift to multi-pillar pension systems, activation, competition in health insurance and care policies outside the family). Even though the changes only became fully apparent over the past decade, this book shows that they must be understood as the culmination of a longer reform trajectory. This book is devoted to the detailed analysis of this reform trajectory. Taken together, the reforms have contributed to a reorganisation of the Bismarckian welfare systems as a whole: they have lost their encompassing capacities, partly turned to activation and employment-friendliness, and weakened the strongest elements of their male breadwinner bias. Instead of the emergence of new hybrid welfare systems, the book concludes that Continental Europe witnessed the development of dual welfare systems that differentiate between the protection of the core workers and the activation of the “atypical” (low skilled) ones, and thus contribute to the dualisation of Continental European societies.