Social Policy in Challenging Times: Economic Crisis and Welfare Systems
Kevin Farnsworth and Zoe Irving
Abstract
There is no precedent to the 2008 economic crisis or its aftermath. The world's most important financial centres all but collapsed under its weight. And some of the world's largest financial institutes either went bust or survived only with massive government bailouts. The impact on social policy has been huge. But the impact of the crisis on national economies and on welfare systems has been far from uniform and predictable. Different economies and different welfare states have been affected at different times, in different ways and to different degrees of magnitude. Bringing together a range ... More
There is no precedent to the 2008 economic crisis or its aftermath. The world's most important financial centres all but collapsed under its weight. And some of the world's largest financial institutes either went bust or survived only with massive government bailouts. The impact on social policy has been huge. But the impact of the crisis on national economies and on welfare systems has been far from uniform and predictable. Different economies and different welfare states have been affected at different times, in different ways and to different degrees of magnitude. Bringing together a range of expert contributions, this book argues that the crisis is better understood as a variety of crises, each mediated by its national context. Consequently, there is an array of potential trajectories for welfare systems, from those where social policy is regarded as incompatible with the post-crisis economy to those where it is considered essential to future economic growth and security.
Keywords:
social policy,
economic crisis,
fiscal crisis,
banking crisis,
austerity,
welfare state,
varieties of capitalism,
Great Recession
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2011 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781847428288 |
| Published to Policy Press Scholarship Online: May 2012 |
DOI:10.1332/policypress/9781847428288.001.0001 |
