The Right and the Welfare State

Abstract

The book studies welfare state policies of conservative and liberal governments (the Right, for short). These parties have been assumed to be nothing but the welfare-skeptical flip-side of the Left, but the book presents a new theory arguing that the conventional wisdom is wrong. The policy goals of the Right – and the political means they use to pursue them – are much less straightforward than simply ‘pro’ or ‘con’ the welfare state. The book uses the distinction between labor market risks and life-course risks in order to explain why Right-wing voters care much more about some social programs than about others and why, consequently, the policies of right-wing governments are much more diverse than normally believed. The book also introduces the concepts of ‘marketization via layering’ and ‘erode and attack’ to help explain the peculiar approach to reforms adopted by Right governments. The book analyses data on public opinion and public policies from a large set of Western democracies and combines them with in-depth case studies of Australia, Denmark, and the UK.

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