With love from me to you: the New Democrats, New Labour and the politics of 'welfare' reform

In: Benefits: A Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, Band 17, Heft 2, S. 149-158

Abstract

The major influence that New Democrat ideas and policies had on the repositioning of the Labour Party from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, and its subsequent approach to welfare reform, has been underplayed within the field of social policy. As a consequence, New Labour's welfare 'revisionism' has come to be perceived more as a pragmatic adaptation to global economic and social change rather than as a politically driven imperative. This has resulted in limited critical engagement with the broader dimensions of New Labour's approach to 'welfare' reform.