Gosta Esping-Andersen – författare

Esping-Andersen distinguishes several major types of welfare state, connecting these with variations in the historical development of different western countries. Current economic processes, the author argues, such as those moving towards a post-industrial order, are not shaped by autonomous market forces but by the nature of states and state differences.

Fully informed by comparative materials, this book will have great appeal to everyone working on issues of economic development and post-industrialism. Its audience will include students and academics in sociology, economics and politics.

Leading experts on each of these regions examine the current structures of social protection, consider the causes of the current welfare state crisis and highlight evolving trends for welfare policy. Different welfare states are shown to manifest different forms of crisis. Among the symptoms of crisis, Welfare States in Transition suggests that the effect of popluation ageing is exaggerated, and an at least equally fundamental challenge lies in the revolution of the modern family and the changing economic role of women. The contributors are sceptical about the neo-liberal formula for reform, not only because it increases inequality but also because it does not address the growing need for an active social investment policy to ensure against entrapment in poverty or low-paid jobs.

Drawing together comparative research on the dynamics of social stratification in a number of key western societies, the authors develop a framework for the analysis of post-industrial class formation. They illustrate the significance of the relations between the welfare state and the household, and the critical interface between gender and class. Case studies of the USA, the UK, Canada, Germany, Norway and Sweden examine the differing application of these ideas in individual welfare states.

These essays analyze the ideological and historical sources of the apparent reversal of the pattern of welfare state expansion in the United States, Great Britain, and Western and Eastern Europe.

These essays analyze the ideological and historical sources of the apparent reversal of the pattern of welfare state expansion in the United States, Great Britain, and Western and Eastern Europe.

This comparative analysis of Scandinavian social democracies argues that the fate of socialist parties is decided, to a significant degree, by their own policies and reforms_not solely by the changes in social structure emphasized in previous studies. Combining quantitative analysis and historical case studies to demonstrate the electoral effects of party policy, Gosta Esping-Andersen formulates a theory that is applicable not only to Scandinavia but to Western Europe as a whole. In addition, he explains why the support basis of social democracy has deteriorated so much more in Denmark than in Sweden and Norway.Originally published in 1985.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.