Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism: The making of a classic

Abstract

In this introduction to the special issue, we review the various debates spurred by Esping-Andersen's The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Tracing its impact since the book's publication in 1990, we show that Three Worlds continues to be the point of reference for comparative welfare state research. A content analysis of articles in the Journal of European Social Policy citing the book indicates that Three Worlds may even have obtained a paradigmatic status and that its claims and findings are often taken for granted rather than challenged. We conclude that Three Worlds has become a classic that is likely to continue to have a major influence on welfare state research in its next 25 years.

(De)familialization and (De)genderization – Competing or Complementary Perspectives in Comparative Policy Analysis?

“…Saraceno and Keck ) or the underlying political‐ideological foundations of welfare states (Emmenegger et al . ). Given the lack of decent available direct indicators of childcare policies, even Saxonberg himself used an outcome indicator: the public childcare enrolment rate.…”

¿Ruptura del compromiso igualitario para sostener el Estado de bienestar en Europa?

“…Los países representan a los distintos modelos de bienestar según se desprende de la literatura especializada: modelo escandinavo, continental-contributivo, liberal-beveridgeano, modelo mediterrá-neo y del Este europeo (Esping-Andersen, 1999;Menz, 2008;Emmenegger et al, 2015), la diversidad de modelos de bienestar puede generar también diversos tipos de actitudes en torno a la inmigración y la función redistributiva del Estado. Con todo, los diversos modelos de bienestar comparten ciertos valores basados en la idea del «compromiso solidario» (Schwartz, 2007).…”

“…In this study, we analyze data from the European Social Survey (ESS 2012), which allows us to examine attitudes regarding income redistribution and individualism in 15 countries of the European Union. These countries represent the distinct welfare models according to the specialized literature: Scandinavian model, continental-contributory, liberal-Beveridgean, Mediterranean and East European (Esping-Andersen, 1999;Menz, 2008;Emmenegger et al, 2015). The diversity of the welfare models may also generate different types of attitudes regarding immigration and the redistributing function of the state.…”

Path dependency and convergence of three worlds of welfare policy during the Great Recession: UK, Germany and Sweden

“…Béland et al 2014;Kammer 2012;Oesch 2006;Pontusson & Raess 2012;Thelen 2014) as they have often been taken to approximate the ideal typical welfare state regimes as defined by Esping-Andersen (1990; cf. Emmenegger et al 2015): conservative, social democratic and liberal, respectively. The pressures on these three countries due to the crisis, although moderate compared to several Southern European states, were rather similar at first.…”