‘CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?’, THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER was reported to have replied to a question concerning the alleged crisis in sterling. In the case of the welfare state it might seem that the appropriate response would be ‘Which crisis? ’ since there are several on the menu - fiscal crisis, legitimacy crisis, crisis of ungovernability . Left, Right and Centre have become convinced that there is a crisis. This is after a period of history which had seen an unprecedented rise in the standard of living of the vast majority of the population living in what are normally regarded as welfare states.

THE IDEA OF THE WELFARE STATE IS CURRENTLY TREATED with more scepticism across the political spectrum than at any time during its development. Insofar as the institutions of the welfare state were consolidated during the period of Butskellite consensus which lasted until the late 1960s, in the more polarized political climate of today it is now seen on both the Right and the Left to embody many of the failures implicit in that consensus. It was assumed, so it was argued, that the fiscal dividends of growth could be used to increase welfare in a relatively painless way by maintaining the absolute position of the better off and using the dividends of growth via public expenditure on health, education and welfare to improve the relative standing of the worst-off members of society. In this way it was thought that the social and economic rights of citizenship could be extended within a market economy without putting excessive strain on that economy.

THE WELFARE STATE IS WIDELY THOUGHT TO HAVE SOME connection with the ideal of equality. But what is the nature of that connection and what is the relevant sense of equality? The purpose of this paper is to identify two conflicting ideals of equality and to discuss their im lications for the political label these ideals ‘equality of welfare’ and ‘equality of resources’, though I shall define them somewhat differently from Dworkin. The conclusion I shall seek to establish is that both ideals have a place in our thinking about the welfare state, and that this is no accident. Both ideals may be traced back to competing conceptions of the person, each of which has a firm place in what may be broadly termed liberal thought.

WESTERN SOCIAL POLICY DEVELOPMENT IS NO LONGER A subject of interest only to welfare specialists and their students. Economic ill-fortune has had at least this one, positive effect. More — and more variegated — questions are being asked about relationships between public/social policy practice2 and economic performance, both within and between Western countries. However, the very fact that social scientists are now tackling this subject in broader fashion and from a variety of disciplinary and ideological erspectives, has served to highlight inconsistencies in the use of such supposedly standard terms as ‘social policy’, ‘social spending’ and ’welfare state’.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS ARTICLE IS TO EXAMINE THE INCOME redistributive effects of the French system of social security in the light of the change of government that took place in 1981. Now, four years since the Socialists took over, it is time to assess their performance in an area in which many changes have been brought about in recent years as a result of the slow-down in economic growth. In this paper, social security includes the four following ‘risks’: health and sickness insurance, family policy, pensions and unemployment compensation. By income redistribution is meant ‘vertical’ redistribution from rich to poor or vice versa.

IN SWEDEN, AS ELSEWHERE, ECONOMIC TRAUMA HAS BROUGHT the future of the welfare state onto the political agenda. The conjuncture at the end of the 1970s of a faltering economic performance together with an acute fiscal crisis has called into question the viability of welfare commitments. A widespread body of opinion sees the welfare state as a volume of expenditure which needs to be trimmed to accord with more limited economic means. Some argue more fundamentally that the welfare state, both as a fiscal burden and a set of values, contributed to the malaise of the economy and is an obstacle to its recovery. A feature of Swedish politics in the early 1980s has been the growth of electoral support for the Conservative Party which has introduced into public debate the ideas and idiom of neo-liberal political economy. The Conservatives have exploited a vein of unease extending across the political spectrum which has become concerned not only about the economic inefficiency of the welfare state, and the tax burden needed to maintain it, but also about the possibility that its institutions have limited rather than enhanced individual choices and freedoms.

I DECIDED TO ENTITLE THIS ESSAY ‘TERRA INCOGNITA Australis’ — a rubric appropriate for more than one reason, as will become apparent later — since, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that what we profess to know concerning the determinants of public policy outcomes has much the same epistemological status as the shapes that appeared in the Southern Hemisphere of sixteenth-century cartographers. The objective of the essay is to substantiate this charge in respect of the prevailing explanatory parad’ ms which inform as to the best way to proceed to give some more definition to the map in future. The charge is a serious one insofar as comparative public policy analysis is currently a boom area in political science. I could be accused of attempting to create a ghost town before the shafts are driven deep enough to hit ‘pay dirt’, but I can only claim that this is not my intention. I have been working in the area which is currently described as comparative public policy for more than a decade now and the explanatory paradigms I criticize are ones to which I have variously subscribed over the years. Since I believe that there is valuable ore to be found, and found in roughly the area in which we are looking for it, I would argue that criticism and redefinition of paradigms are useful tasks, since they improve our eventual chances of hitting a lode-bearing seam.

MY INTENTION IN THIS ARTICLE IS TO PRESENT A BIRD'S-EYE view of various planning approaches to the welfare state crisis that are currently being initiated or at least discussed in a number of Western democracies. They fall into three broad categories which, I believe, bear some relation to the kind of diagnosis made about the 'crisis' to be dealt with. First of all, those who believe that the welfare state's main weakness comes from the disappearance of sustained, fast growth of the GNP, put their hopes in economic recovery in Beyond this strictly quantitative solution there are interpretations of the welfare state's predicament in terms of dee - order to return as soon as possible to ‘welfare state as usual’. seated, ‘structural’ imbalances which allegedly require fairly radical transformation in order to provide this ailing system with the more effective command and control mechanisms needed to make it viable again, Finally some people argue that the welfare state has exhausted its growth potential alto ether, so that its crisis can only be overcome through a quaftative change toward a different system (hence the phrase ‘metasystemic’ solution).

HOW DO PEOPLE'S IDEAS ABOUT REDISTRIBUTION AND STATE welfare affect their political judgments? The issue is of interest for practical and theoretical reasons. A party which presents egalitarian redistribution as a central social-policy objective has been replaced in government by one which does not. Various writers suggest that a lack of popular support for redistribution contributed to this change, whether because the experience of economic decline undermines altruism; because there is an anti-welfare backlash at the level of ideology; or because the least redistributive welfare services benefit the better-off groups who are also more influential .Thus free sixth-form and university education, mortgage interest relief and occupational pension subsidy are favoured, whereas rent subsidy, low wage supplementation and unemployment benefit are not. Underlying these arguments is the suggestion that welfare programmes, to the extent that they are seen to contradict popular desires, will contribute to a generalized decline in support for government.

THE ANTITHESIS BETWEEN INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM which dominates political discussion of the welfare state and many other political issues confuses more than it illuminates. First, the individual of market liberal theory is a curious entity, existin solely as a disembodied unit in market transactions. Secondly, the ‘choice’ which is the means by which units in the liberal system express their freedom is highly constrained: they choose solely between items offered in the market. Such a choice confers power on the choosing individual, but it also limits that power: choices may be made only within the framework that the market provides. Liberal theory is explicit about this; it is this limitation on the behaviour of individuals that protects mankind from tyranny. But by no means all the constraints it imposes are of this kind. If consumers are ill-equiped to choose they are made dependent on the providers ofthe service, who may, if competition is imperfect, acquire something of a dictatorial position themselves.