The Politics of Welfare Reform in 21st-Century Western Europe : Inclusion or Segmentation

This book examines political conflicts over modern welfare reform in Western Europe. It draws on new data to show that the question of inclusion vs segmentation has become a deeply divisive partisan conflict line in European welfare politics.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.Which social policies should be adopted to address the social and economic challenges that Western European societies are facing in the 21st century? How much resource should be spent on correcting unequal market outcomes? Should the welfare state shield citizens from the risks of the emerging globalized knowledge economy, or help them adapt to these new realities? This book studies the political conflict that surrounds these questions, identifying structural and coalitional opportunities for reform across policy fields and regional contexts. The authors show that a point of debate for both voters and political parties is whether to expand the boundaries of welfare programs to address new social risks and to prioritize future economic opportunities - inclusion - or whether to target expenditure in ways that prioritize the current community and its income security - segmentation. To study politicization and reform opportunities in these different fields, the book draws on large amounts of new, specially-gathered data regarding the social policy positions and priorities of citizens and political parties in eight Western European countries. The findings show that the question of inclusion vs segmentation has become a deeply divisive partisan conflict line in European welfare politics, with the potential to internally divide both the political right and the left. It is the first book to systematically assess the implications of mass electoral realignment - including the rise of green and radical right parties - for the politics of European welfare states and opportunities for reform.