The 100 Best Books on Social Democracy
Scottish Parliament by Colin (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The 100 Best Books on Social Democracy list contains texts on the history, theory, crisis and future of social democracy.
Some essays on social democracy:
- Understanding Social Democracy by Sheri Berman
- Michal Kalecki, The Political Aspects of Full Employment
- What is living and what is dead in social democracy, Tony Judt
- Can social democracy save the world again? by Sheri Berman
1. The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State
By Francis G. Castles; Stephan Leibfried; Jane Lewis; Herbert Obinger; Christopher Pierson
The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State is the authoritative and definitive guide to the contemporary welfare state. In a volume consisting of nearly fifty newly-written chapters, a broad range of the world's leading scholars offer a comprehensive account of everything one needs to know about the modern ... More »
2. The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger
By Richard G. Wilkinson; Kate Pickett | 60% Off
It is a well-established fact that in rich societies the poor have shorter lives and suffer more from almost every social problem. The Spirit Level, based on thirty years of research, takes this truth a step further. One common factor links the healthiest and happiest societies: the degree ... More »
3. The Welfare State: A Very Short Introduction
By David Garland | Used Price: 60% Off
Welfare states vary across nations and change over time. And the balance between markets and government; free enterprise and social protection is perennially in question. But all developed societies have welfare states of one kind or another - they are a fundamental dimension of modern government. And even ... More »
4. The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century
By Sheri Berman | Used Price: 60% Off
Political history in the industrial world has indeed ended, argues this pioneering study, but the winner has been social democracy - an ideology and political movement that has been as influential as it has been misunderstood. Berman looks at the history of social democracy from its origins in ... More »
5. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism
Few discussions in modern social science have occupied as much attention as the changing nature of welfare states in Western societies. Gøsta Esping-Andersen, one of the foremost contributors to current debates on this issue, here provides a new analysis of the character and role ... More »
6. Varieties of Capitalism
By Peter A. Hall; David Soskice | 70% Off
What are the most important differences among national economies? Is globalization forcing nations to converge on an Anglo-American model? What explains national differences in social and economic policy? This pathbreaking work outlines a new approach to these questions. It highlights the role of business in national economies and ... More »
7. The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy
By Susan Strange | Used Price: 90% Off
Who is really in charge of the world economy? Not only governments, argues Susan Strange in The Retreat of the State. Big businesses, drug barons, insurers, accountants and international bureaucrats all encroach on the so-called sovereignty of the state. Professor Strange examines the implications of this rivalry and ... More »
8. The Age of Social Democracy: Norway and Sweden in the Twentieth Century
This is the history of how two countries on the northern edge of Europe built societies in the twentieth century that became objects of inspiration and envy around the world. Francis Sejersted, one of Scandinavia's leading historians, tells how Norway and Sweden achieved a rare feat by realizing ... More »
9. The Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience
By Stephen A. Marglin; Juliet B. Schor
The period after World War Two, with its sustained growth and high employment rate, has been referred to as the "golden age" of capitalism. Blending historical analysis with economic theory, this work presents essays that scrutinize the institutions that fostered this growth and high employment as well as ... More »
10. Ill Fares the Land
By Tony Judt | Rock-bottom Price: $0.01
A gift to the next generation of engaged citizens, from one of our most celebrated intellectuals. As the economic collapse of 2008 made clear, the social contract that defined postwar life in Europe and America-the guarantee of security, stability, and fairness-is no longer guaranteed; in fact, ... More »
11. Time for Socialism: Dispatches from a World on Fire, 2016-2021
As a correspondent for the French newspaper Le Monde, world-renowned economist Thomas Piketty has documented the rise and fall of Trump, the drama of Brexit, Emmanuel Macron's ascendance to the French presidency, the unfolding of a global pandemic, and much else besides, always from the perspective of his ... More »
12. Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present
Imagine a world with no banks. No stock market. No tech giants. No billionaires. Imagine if Occupy and Extinction Rebellion actually won. In Another Now world-famous economist Yanis Varoufakis shows us what such a world would look like. Far from being a fantasy, he describes how ... More »
13. Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century
By Mark Blyth
Mark Blyth argues that economic ideas are powerful political tools as used by domestic groups in order to effect change since whoever defines what the economy is, what is wrong with it, and what would improve it, has a profound political resource in their possession. Blyth analyzes the ... More »
14. Development of Welfare States in Europe and America
By Peter Flora; Arnold J. Heidenheimer
This volume seeks to contribute to an interdisci-plinary, comparative, and historical study of Western welfare states. It attempts to link their historical dynamics and contemporary problems in an international perspective. Building on collaboration between European-and American-based research groups, the editors have coordinated contributions by economists, political scientists, ... More »
15. The Politics of Social Solidarity: Class Bases of the European Welfare State 1875-1975
This book examines the social bases of the European welfare state, and the interests developed in or against social policy by various classes of society, during the period 1875-1975 in Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. By analyzing the competing concerns of different social "actors" that lie behind ... More »
16. In Care of the State: Health Care, Education and Welfare in Europe and America
This work is a comparative analysis of the development of health care, education and social welfare from small-scale, mostly informal voluntary arrangements toward collective institutions of national scope and controlled by the state. De Swaan examines the growth of poor relief, elementary education, urban sanitation and social security ... More »
17. European Foundations of the Welfare State
While social welfare programs, often inspired by international organizations, are spreading throughout the world, the more far-reaching notion of governmental responsibility for the basic well-being of all members of a political society is not, although it remains a feature of Europe and the former British Commonwealth. The welfare ... More »
18. The Democratic Class Struggle
By Walter Korpi
First published in 1983. This book combines a case study of class relations, politics and voting in Sweden with a comparative analysis of distributive conflicts and politics in eighteen OECD countries. Its underlying theoretical theme is the development of class relations in free-enterprise or capitalise democracies. This title ... More »
19. America's Misunderstood Welfare State: Persistent Myths, Enduring Realities
By Theodore R. Marmor; Jerry L. Mashaw; Philip L. Harvey
This book sets the record straight about the nation's welfare programs, showing that the gloom and doom surrounding public discussion stem from false ideas about what these programs are and how they work. More »
20. Good Times, Bad Times: The Welfare Myth of Them and Us
By John Hills
Two-thirds of UK government spending now goes on the welfare state and where the money is spent - healthcare, education, pensions, benefits - is the centre of political and public debate. Much of that debate is dominated by the myth that the population divides into those who benefit ... More »
21. Reasons for Welfare: The Political Theory of the Welfare State
Robert Goodin passionately and cogently defends the welfare state from current attacks by the New Right. But he contends that the welfare state finds false friends in those on the Old Left who would justify it as a hesitant first step toward some larger, ideally just form of ... More »
22. Social Democratic America
America is the one of the wealthiest nations on earth. So why do so many Americans struggle to make ends meet? Why is it so difficult for those who start at the bottom to reach the middle class? And why, if a rising economic tide lifts all boats, ... More »
23. Liberalism and Sociology: L. T. Hobhouse and Political Argument in England 1880-1914
In this wide-ranging book, Stefan Collini deals with the relationship between Liberalism and sociology in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. He discusses in particular the crucial contributions of L. T. Hobhouse, the leading Liberal political theorist of the period who is also generally regarded as the 'Founding ... More »
24. Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age
"The most belated of nations," Theodore Roosevelt called his country during the workmen's compensation fight in 1907. Earlier reformers, progressives of his day, and later New Dealers lamented the nation's resistance to models abroad for correctives to the backwardness of American social politics. Atlantic Crossings is the first ... More »
25. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States
It is a commonplace that the United States lagged behind the countries of Western Europe in developing modern social policies. But, as Theda Skocpol shows in this startlingly new historical analysis, the United States actually pioneered generous social spending for many of its elderly, disabled, and dependent citizens. ... More »
26. The Sympathetic State: Disaster Relief and the Origins of the American Welfare State
Even as unemployment rates soared during the Great Depression, FDR's relief and social security programs faced attacks in Congress and the courts on the legitimacy of federal aid to the growing population of poor. In response, New Dealers pointed to a long tradition-dating back to 1790 and now ... More »
27. The Five Giants; A Biography of the Welfare State
Giant Want. Giant Disease. Giant Ignorance. Giant Squalor. Giant Idleness. These were the Five Giants that loomed over the post-war reconstruction of Britain. The battle against them was fought by five gargantuan programmes that made up the core of the Welfare State: social security, health, education, housing ... More »
28. In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History Of Welfare In America
With welfare reform a burning political issue, this special anniversary edition of the classic history of welfare in America has been revised and updated to include the latest bipartisan debates on how to end welfare as we know it." In the Shadow of the Poorhouse examines the origins ... More »
29. Inward Conquest: The Political Origins of Modern Public Services
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, modern states began to provide many of the public services we now take for granted. Inward Conquest presents the first comprehensive analysis of the political origins of modern public services during this period. Ansell and Lindvall show how struggles among political ... More »
30. The Nordic Model of Social Democracy
By Nik Brandal; Oivind Bratberg; Dag Einar Thorsen
Since the late 1920s, social democracy has been preeminent in the politics of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, through dominant parties and ideological hegemony of the center-left. The Nordic Model of Social Democracy relates the concept of the Nordic model to the guiding role of social democratic ideology in ... More »
31. Social Democracy in the Global Periphery: Origins, Challenges, Prospects
By Marc Edelman; Richard Sandbrook; Patrick Heller; Judith Teichman
Social Democracy in the Global Periphery focuses on social-democratic regimes in the developing world that have, to varying degrees, reconciled the needs of achieving growth through globalized markets with extensions of political, social and economic rights. The authors show that opportunities exist to achieve significant social progress, despite ... More »
32. Bread And Circuses: Historical Sociology And Political Pluralism
By Paul Veyne
An abridgement of a book which attempts to create a new concept of politico-economic roles in the ancient world - based on the practice both in Greece and Rome of the rich providing voluntarily for food and entertainment for the poor. More »
33. Social Welfare in Pre-industrial England: The Old Poor Law Tradition
Crossing period boundaries separating late medieval, early modern, and long eighteenth-century England, Paul A. Fideler offers a coherent overview of parish-centered social welfare from its medieval roots, through its institutionalisation in the Elizabethan Poor Law, to its demise in the early years of the Industrial Revolution. More »
34. Public Goods Provision in the Early Modern Economy: Comparative Perspectives from Japan, China, and Europe
Scholarly discussions on economic development in history, specifically those linked to industrialization or modern economic growth, have paid great attention to the formation and development of the market economy as a set of institutions able to augment people's welfare. The role of specific nonmarket practices for promoting the ... More »
35. Spheres Of Justice: A Defense Of Pluralism And Equality
The distinguished political philosopher and author of the widely acclaimed Just and Unjust Wars analyzes how society distributes not just wealth and power but other social goods" like honor, education, work, free time,even love. More »
36. Charity in Islamic Societies
By Amy Singer
Muslim beliefs have inspired charitable giving for over fourteen centuries, yet Islamic history has rarely been examined from this perspective. In Charity in Islamic Societies, Amy Singer explains the basic concepts and institutions of Muslim charity, including the obligation to give on an annual basis. Charitable endowments shaped ... More »
37. Islam, Charity, and Activism: Middle-Class Networks and Social Welfare in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen
By Janine A. Clark | Used Price: 60% Off
Throughout the Middle East, Islamist charities and social welfare organizations play a major role in addressing the socioeconomic needs of Muslim societies, independently of the state. Through case studies of Islamic medical clinics in Egypt, the Islamic Center Charity Society in Jordan, and the Islah Women’s Charitable Society ... More »
38. The Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1700-1948
The Solidarities of Strangers is a study of English policies toward the poor from the seventeenth century to the present that combines individual stories with official actions. Lynn Lees shows how clients as well as officials negotiated welfare settlements. Cultural definitions of entitlement, rather than available resources, determined ... More »
39. The People's Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America
Much of today's political rhetoric decries the welfare state and our maze of government regulations. Critics hark back to a time before the state intervened so directly in citizens' lives. In The People's Welfare, William Novak refutes this vision of a stateless past by documenting America's long history ... More »
40. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia
By James Scott | Used Price: 70% Off
James C. Scott places the critical problem of the peasant household-subsistence-at the center of this study. The fear of food shortages, he argues persuasively, explains many otherwise puzzling technical, social, and moral arrangements in peasant society, such as resistance to innovation, the desire to own land even at ... More »
41. Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy
Richard M. Titmuss's The Gift Relationship has long been acknowledged as one of the classic texts on social policy. Honored by the New York Times as one of the ten most important books of the year when it first appeared in 1970, Titmuss's The Gift Relationship is even ... More »
42. The Needs of Strangers
This thought provoking book uncovers a crisis in the political imagination, a wide-spread failure to provide the passionate sense of community in which our need for belonging can be met. Seeking the answers to fundamental questions, Michael Ignatieff writes vividly both about ideas and about the people who ... More »
43. Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century
By Peter H. Lindert | Used Price: 90% Off
Peter Lindert inquires as to whether social policies that redistribute income impose constraints on economic growth. Although taxes and transfers have been debated for centuries, only recently have we been able to obtain a clear view of the evolution of social spending. Lindert argues that, contrary to the ... More »
44. The Hidden Welfare State: Tax Expenditures and Social Policy in the United States
Despite costing hundreds of billions of dollars and subsidizing everything from homeownership and child care to health insurance, tax expenditures (commonly known as tax loopholes) have received little attention from those who study American government. This oversight has contributed to an incomplete and misleading portrait of U.S. social ... More »
45. The Divided Welfare State: The Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States
The Divided Welfare State is the first comprehensive political analysis of America's distinctive system of public and private social benefits. Everyone knows that the American welfare state is unusual--less expensive and extensive, later to develop and slower to grow, than comparable programs abroad. Yet, U.S. social policy does ... More »
46. Transformation of the Welfare State: The Silent Surrender of Public Responsibility
By Neil Gilbert | Used Price: 80% Off
How much has really changed in the world of welfare? A great deal, according to Neil Gilbert, one of our most deeply engaged and thoughtful analysts of social welfare policy. In this panoramic inquiry, Gilbert spans the globe to assess, in provocative yet dispassionate fashion, what welfare looks ... More »
47. Social insurance in Europe
By illustrating the similarities and differences within and across countries, this book reflects on the current role of social insurance, recent policy changes and pressures for reform in 10 European countries: UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Portugal, Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden and Denmark. The book summaries the main ... More »
48. Making Sense of Social Security Reform
The Social Security Act of 1935 must be counted among the most monumental pieces of legislation ever passed by Congress. Today, sixty-five years after its enactment, public support for Social Security remains extremely strong. At the same time, there have been reports that Social Security is in grave ... More »
49. Pitied but Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare 1890-1935
By Linda Gordon
Looks at the intentions of those who started the welfare system, describes the economic conditions of single mothers, and argues that false assumptions must be discarded if true reform can be achieved More »
50. Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France
For over one hundred years, the British economy has been in decline relative to other industrialized countries. This book explores the origins of Britain's economic problems and develops a striking new argument about the sources of decline. It goes on to analyze the evolution of economic policy in ... More »
51. Governance of the American Economy
By J. Rogers Hollingsworth; John L. Campbell; Leon N. Lindberg
In this tightly edited volume, a single theoretical framework is developed to explain institutional transformation in the governance of the U.S. economy in the twentieth century, and this framework is applied to case studies of eight American industries in various sectors: telecommunications, nuclear energy, railroads, steel automobiles, dairies, ... More »
52. The Welfare State as Piggy Bank: Information, Risk, Uncertainty, and the Role of the State
Of the many functions of the welfare state, two are particularly prominent: the 'Robin Hood' function - the provision of poverty relief, the redistribution of income and wealth, and the reduction of social exclusion; and the 'piggy bank' function - ensuring mechanisms for insurance and for redistribution over ... More »
53. Contemporary Capitalism: The Embeddedness of Institutions
By J. Rogers Hollingsworth; Robert Boyer
This book argues that there is no single best institutional arrangement for organizing modern societies. Therefore, the market should not be considered the "ideal and universal" arrangement for coordinating economic activity. Instead, the editors argue, the economic institutions of capitalism exhibit a large variety of objectives and tools ... More »
54. The Social Democratic State: Swedish Model And The Bureaucratic Problem
By Bo Rothstein
The Swedish Social Democratic Party, the SAP, is the most successful social democratic party in the world. It has led the government for most of the last six decades, participating either alone or as the dominant force in coalition government. The SAP has also worked closely ... More »
55. Capitalists against Markets: The Making of Labor Markets and Welfare States in the United States and Sweden
Captialists Against Markets challenges the conventional wisdom that welfare state builders took their cues from labor and other progressive interests. Instead, Peter Swenson argues, pragmatic social reformers looked for support not only from below but also from above, taking into account capitalists interests and preferences. With original theory ... More »
56. Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden: From Relief to Income Maintenance
By Hugh Heclo
Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden was the winner of the 1974 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Book Award for the best book published in the United States on government, politics, or international affairs. More »
57. What's Left of the Left: Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times
By James E. Cronin; George Ross; James Shoch
In What's Left of the Left, distinguished scholars of European and U.S. politics consider how center-left political parties have fared since the 1970s. They explore the left's responses to the end of the postwar economic boom, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the erosion of traditional party politics, ... More »
58. Re-Forming Capitalism: Institutional Change in the German Political Economy
Wolfgang Streeck is a leading figure in comparative political economy and institutional theory. In this book he addresses some of the key issues in this field: the role of history in institutional analysis, the dynamics of slow institutional change, the limitations of rational design and economic-functionalist explanations of ... More »
59. Thinking About Social Policy: The German Tradition
The book traces the political history of the concept of social policy. "Social policy" originated in Germany in the mid 19th century as a scholarly term that made a career in politics. The term became more prominent only after World War II. Kaufmann, the doyen of the sociology ... More »
60. The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980
By Gary Gerstle; Steve Fraser | Under $1.00
"As the twenty-first century approaches, a new generation of scholars is providing fresh historical perspectives on the twentieth. The contributors to The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order move beyond both the self-congratulation of traditional liberals and the hostility of New Left radicals. This collection of ... More »
61. Welfare in the United States: A History with Documents, 1935-1996
By Premilla Nadasen; Jennifer Mittelstadt; Marisa Chappell
Welfare has been central to a number of significant political debates in modern America: What role should the government play in alleviating poverty? What does a government owe its citizens, and who is entitled to help? How have race and gender shaped economic opportunities and outcomes? How ... More »
62. The Foundations of the Welfare State
By Pat Thane
A fully revised and rewritten second edition of a book which is now regarded as a classic. Takes full advantage of new research and places strong emphasis on voluntary action and the role of women in the shaping of social policy. It retains the excellent historical perspective that ... More »
63. Politics of Risk-taking: Welfare State Reform in Advanced Democracies
By Barbara Vis
How much and in which direction have the welfare states among the Western democracies changed over the past decades? Moreover, under which conditions have governments enacted these changes? Based on insights from prospect theory, a psychological theory of choice under risk, Vis demonstrates ably that the context in ... More »
64. The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care
By T. R. Reid
Bringing to bear his talent for explaining complex issues in a clear, engaging way, New York Times bestselling author T. R. Reid visits industrialized democracies around the world--France, Britain, Germany, Japan, and beyond--to provide a revelatory tour of successful, affordable universal health care systems. Now updated with new ... More »
65. Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
*Shortlisted for FT/McKinsey 2020 Business Book of the Year* From economist Anne Case and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton, a groundbreaking account of how the flaws in capitalism are fatal for America's working class Life expectancy in the United States has recently fallen for three years in a ... More »
66. Inequality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal America
What are the relative merits of the American and European socioeconomic systems? Long-standing debates have heated up in recent years with the expansion of the European Union and increasingly sharp political and cultural differences between the United States and Europe. In Inequality and Prosperity, Jonas Pontusson provides a ... More »
67. The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How America And Europe Are Alike
There is much heated rhetoric about the widening gulf between Europe and America. But are the Us and Europe so different? Peter Baldwin, one of the world's leading historians of comparative social policy, thinks not, and in this bracingly argued but remarkably informed polemic, he lays out how ... More »
68. Contradictions of the Welfare State
By John Keane; Claus Offe
Originally published in 1984, Contradictions of the Welfare State is the first collection of Claus Offe's essays to appear in a single volume in English. The political writings in this volume are primarily concerned with the origins of the present difficulties of welfare capitalist states, and he indicates ... More »
69. Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare
By Frances Fox Piven; Richard A. Cloward
"Originally published in 1971, this social science classic outlines the social functions of welfare programs." Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc."Uncompromising and provocative....By mixing history, political interpretation and sociological analysis, Piven and Cloward provide the best explanation to date of our present situation...no future discussion of welfare can ... More »
70. Social Democracy After the Cold War
Offering a comparative look at social democratic experience since the Cold War, the volume examines countries where social democracy has long been an influential political force - Sweden, Germany, Britain, and Australia - while also considering the history of Canada's NDP and the emergence of New Left parties ... More »
71. The Death of Social Democracy: Political Consequences in the 21st Century
Whereas many writers and scholars interested in the field of social democracy have focused on factors such as the role of economic globalization and electoral pressures, Ashley Lavelle explores the importance of the collapse of the post-war economic boom and lower growth rates since then. He examines how ... More »
72. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy
By Martin Gilens | Used Price: 70% Off
Tackling one of the most volatile issues in contemporary politics, Martin Gilens's work punctures myths and misconceptions about welfare policy, public opinion, and the role of the media in both. Why Americans Hate Welfare shows that the public's views on welfare are a complex mixture of cynicism and ... More »
73. Rethinking Social Policy: Race, Poverty, and the Underclass
In a fervent appeal for clearer thinking on social issues, Christopher Jencks reexamines the way Americans think about race, poverty, crime, heredity, welfare, and the underclass. Arguing that neither liberal nor conservative ideas about these issues withstand close scrutiny, he calls for less emphasis on political principles and ... More »
74. Welfare Realities: From Rhetoric to Reform
By Mary Jo Bane; David T. Ellwood
Mary Jo Bane and David Ellwood examine the American welfare system-its recipients, its providers, and the swirl of policy ideas surrounding it-with objectivity and clarity. Focusing on the AFDC Program (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), they examine the composition of the populations receiving assistance, the duration of ... More »
75. Cheating Welfare: Public Assistance and the Criminalization of Poverty
Over the last three decades, welfare policies have been informed by popular beliefs that welfare fraud is rampant. As a result, welfare policies have become more punitive and the boundaries between the welfare system and the criminal justice system have blurred-so much so that in some locales prosecution ... More »
76. Can the Welfare State Survive?
After the most serious economic crash since the 1930s and the slowest recovery on record, austerity rules. Spending on the welfare state did not cause the crisis, but deep cuts in welfare budgets has become the default policy response. The welfare state is seen as a burden on ... More »
77. What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract
The social contract shapes everything: our political institutions, legal systems and material conditions, but also the organisation of family and community, our well-being, relationships and life prospects. And yet everywhere, the social contract is failing. Accelerating changes in technology, demography and climate will reshape our world in ... More »
78. Dismantling the Welfare State?: Reagan, Thatcher and the Politics of Retrenchment
By Paul Pierson
This book offers a careful examination of the politics of social policy in an era of austerity and conservative governance. Focusing on the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Pierson provides a compelling explanation for the welfare state's durability and for the few occasions where each government ... More »
79. Capitalism Unleashed: Finance, Globalization, and Welfare
By Andrew Glyn | Used Price: 80% Off
This accessible and persuasive book challenges the notion of our capitalist destiny. It provides a clear and concise history of the problems facing the economies of Europe, Japan, and the US during the latter half of the twentieth century and questions whether capitalism has really brought the levels ... More »
80. Constructions of Neoliberal Reason
By Jamie Peck
Amongst intellectuals and activists, neoliberalism has become a potent signifier for the kind of free-market thinking that has dominated politics for the past three decades. Forever associated with the conviction politics of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the free-market project has since become synonymous with the 'Washington consensus' ... More »
81. Ending Welfare as We Know it: Context and Choice in Policy Toward Low-Income Families
Bill Clinton's first presidential term was a period of extraordinary change in policy toward low-income families. In 1993 Congress enacted a major expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income working families. In 1996 Congress passed and the president signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation ... More »
82. Actively Seeking Work?: The Politics of Unemployment and Welfare Policy in the United States and Great Britain
By Desmond King
Why have both Great Britain and the United States been unable to create effective training and work programs for the unemployed? Desmond King contends that the answer lies in the liberal political origins of these programs. Integrating extensive, previously untapped archival and documentary materials with an analysis of ... More »
83. $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America
By H. Luke Shaefer; Kathryn J. Edin
A revelatory account of poverty in America so deep that we, as a country, don t think it exists Jessica Compton s family of four would have no cash income unless she donated plasma twice a week at her local donation center in Tennessee.Modonna Harris and her teenage ... More »
84. Regimes of Inequality: The Political Economy of Health and Wealth
By Julia Lynch
Since the 1990s, mainstream political parties have failed to address the problem of growing inequality, resulting in political backlash and the transformation of European party systems. Most attempts to explain the rise of inequality in political science take a far too narrow approach, considering only economic inequality and ... More »
85. Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else
By James Meek
“The essential public good that Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and now Cameron sell is not power stations, or trains, or hospitals. It’s the public itself. it’s us.â€Ã‚ In a little over a generation the bones and sinews of the British economy – rail, energy, water, postal services, municipal ... More »
86. South Koreans in the Debt Crisis: The Creation of a Neoliberal Welfare Society
By Jesook Song | Used Price: 90% Off
South Koreans in the Debt Crisis is a detailed examination of the logic underlying the neoliberal welfare state that South Korea created in response to the devastating Asian Debt Crisis (1997-2001). Jesook Song argues that while the government proclaimed that it would guarantee all South Koreans a minimum ... More »
87. The Managerial State: Power, Politics and Ideology in the Remaking of Social Welfare
This original analysis of the creation of new state forms critically examines the political forces that enabled `more and better management' to be presented as a solution to the problems of the welfare state in Britain. Examining the micro-politics within public service, the authors draw links between ... More »
88. The New Social Question: Rethinking the Welfare State
By Pierre Rosanvallon; Barbara Harshav
The welfare state has come under severe pressure internationally, partly for the well-known reasons of slowing economic growth and declining confidence in the public sector. According to the influential social theorist Pierre Rosanvallon, however, there is also a deeper and less familiar reason for the crisis of the ... More »
89. Welfare and Work in the Open Economy: Volume I: From Vulnerability to Competitiveness
By Fritz W. Scharpf; Vivien A. Schmidt
In this ground-breaking, two-volume study of the adjustment of advanced welfare states to international economic pressures, leading scholars detail the wide variety of responses in twelve countries. Volume I presents comparative analyses of differences in countries' vulnerabilities and capabilities, the effectiveness of their policy responses, and the role ... More »
90. Why We Need a New Welfare State
By Gosta Esping-Andersen; Anton Hemerijck; John Myers; Duncan Gallie
Leading scholars in the field examine the highly topical issue of the future the welfare state in Europe. They argue that welfare states need to adjust and examine which kind of welfare architecture will further Europe's stated goal of maximum social inclusion and justice. This volume concentrates on ... More »
91. The Possibility of Politics: A Study in the Political Economy of the Welfare State
By Stein Ringen
The Possibility of Politics explores the power of political reform, specifically reform of the modern welfare state. Can reform be effective if limited to cautious and piecemeal interventions that avoid radicalism and revolution? Can it also avoid unwanted consequences? Will the welfare state survive in the future?Stein Ringen ... More »
92. The Economics of Belonging: A Radical Plan to Win Back the Left Behind and Achieve Prosperity for All
A radical new approach to economic policy that addresses the symptoms and causes of inequality in Western society today Fueled by populism and the frustrations of the disenfranchised, the past few years have witnessed the widespread rejection of the economic and political order that Western countries built up ... More »
93. Thinking like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy
The story of how economic reasoning came to dominate Washington between the 1960s and 1980s-and why it continues to constrain progressive ambitions today For decades, Democratic politicians have frustrated progressives by tinkering around the margins of policy while shying away from truly ambitious change. What happened to bold ... More »
94. New Risks, New Welfare: The Transformation of the European Welfare State
This book introduces the concept of new social risks in welfare state studies and explains their relevance to the comparative understanding of social policy in Europe. New social risks arise from shifts in the balance of work and family life as a direct result of the declining importance ... More »
95. Real Freedom for All: What (if anything) can justify capitalism?
Capitalist societies are full of unacceptable inequalities. Freedom is of paramount importance. These two convictions are widely shared across the world, yet they seem to be completely contradictory with each other. Fighting inequality jeopardizes freedom, and taking freedom seriously boosts inequality. Can this conflict be resolved? In this ... More »
96. The Stakeholder Society
By Bruce Ackerman; Anne Alstott
Must we resign ourselves to a growing chasm between rich and poor? Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott propose an innovative alternative in this thought-provoking book: an eighty thousand dollar grant for every qualifying young adult. The authors analyze this plan from many perspectives and argue that such a ... More »
97. Inequality: What Can Be Done?
Winner of the Richard A. Lester Award for the Outstanding Book in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics, Princeton University An Economist Best Economics and Business Book of the Year A Financial Times Best Economics Book of the Year Inequality is one of our most urgent social problems. ... More »
98. The Politics of Welfare State Reform in Continental Europe: Modernization in Hard Times
This book challenges existing theories of welfare state change by analyzing pension reforms in France, Germany, and Switzerland between 1970 and 2004. It explains why all three countries were able to adopt far-reaching reforms, adapting their pension regimes to both financial austerity and new social risks. In a ... More »
99. Gender Inequality and Welfare States in Europe
By Mary Daly
Gender equality has been one of the defining projects of European welfare states. It has proven an elusive goal, not just because of political opposition but also due to a lack of clarity in how to best frame equality and take account of family-related considerations. This wide-ranging book ... More »
100. Democracy and the Left: Social Policy and Inequality in Latin America
By Evelyne Huber; John D. Stephens
Although inequality in Latin America ranks among the worst in the world, it has notably declined over the last decade, offset by improvements in health care and education, enhanced programs for social assistance, and increases in the minimum wage. In Democracy and the Left, Evelyne Huber and ... More »
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