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New Paradigms in Public Policy reviews some of the most challenging developments in British society as they are understood by policy-makers and by academics. The key point is that academic debates identify a range of ways in which issues can be understood and tackled, but policy is typically based on a narrow subset of possible approaches. This is illustrated by discussion of climate change, demographic shifts, the response to greater ethnic and religious diversity, the debate about community and local area politics, democratization, nudge, the international financial crisis, and the growth of popular disillusion with politics and politicians. These areas range across economic, social and political issues. Written by leading academics from the fields under discussion and drawing on the most recent research, this book will contribute to our understanding of governance and particularly of how the ideas that lead the policy agenda emerge and are reinforced. It will also be valuable in academic study of policy debate and help develop understanding of the policy issues which it examines

The Country Reports on the State of Social Policy Research are published from time to time in the Working Paper Series of the Center for Social Policy. An experienced scientist offers an overview of the central institutions and persons in comparative and national social policy research in his or her country. These reports can never depict the whole landscape but they can help by focusing our attention on the strengths, the special expertise, and the special features of the respective research community as it confronts welfare state challenges and reforms in the 21st century. Each country report may provide its readers with a starting point for their own research, and it can point to the well-travelled networks and to the dominant issues at hand.

Throughout the world, governments are restructuring social and welfare provision. This book analyses the pressures on social citizenship from changes in work and the family, political actors, an ageing population, and a general backdrop of globalization

Machine generated contents note: List of Figures and Tables vi -- Notes on the Contributors vii -- Preface ix -- 1 The Politics of Welfare in Europe -- Peter Taylor-Gooby 1 -- 2 Earning Welfare Citizenship: Welfare State Reform -- in Finland and Sweden -- Virpi Timonen 29 -- 3 Reshaping the Social Policy-Making Framework in France -- Bruno Palier 52 -- 4 Stumbling towards Reform: The German Welfare State -- in the 1990s -- Frank Blnker and Hellmut Wollmann 75 -- 5 Spain, a Via Media of Welfare Development -- Luis Moreno 100 -- 6 Switzerland: Stubborn Institutions in a Changing Society -- Giuliano Bonoli 123 -- 7 Welfare Reform in the UK: the Construction of a Liberal -- Consensus -- Peter Taylor-Gooby 147 -- 8 Polity, Policy-Making and Welfare Futures -- Peter Taylor-Gooby 171 -- Bibliography 189 -- Index 204

Public policies increasingly emphasize active consumerism, entrepreneurship on the part of service providers and professionals, privatisation and an expanded role for markets. Choice and Public Policy draws on research by economists, psychologists, sociologists and public policy experts. The research demonstrates that the traditional rational choice model of economic behaviour is unsatisfactory in providing accounts of the way people choose in relation to work, saving, spending, investment and social welfare. It also shows that the public policies of active consumerism, public sector entrepreneurship and privatisation based on this approach are seriously flawed.

Peter Taylor-Gooby outlines the findings of research that used deliberative forums to examine attitudes towards welfare. He concludes that what lay behind the views expressed was a mistrust in the capacity of the government to address the issues that most people face. It is this lack of trust that turns people against the welfare system rather than an ideological commitment to neoliberalism.

The double crisis approach distinguishes two kinds of challenge confronting modern welfare states: long-term structural problems and short-term difficulties resulting from policy choices which affect the success with which the long-term issues can be addressed. Structural challenges include two main areas: • globalisation and technological changes demanding that governments direct attention to national competitiveness, and • population ageing, requiring more spending on pensions, and health and social care. Recent policy-related problems include the austerity programme since 2010 which has been particularly directed towards benefits and services for working-age people. Responses to both kinds of challenge have set the stage for Brexit.