IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v28y2010i5p923-942.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Retrenchment or Resilience? New Evidence on Relative Social Expenditure Trends

Author

Listed:
  • Jon Olaskoaga-Larrauri

    (Departamento de Organización de Empresas, Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao, Spain)

  • Ricardo Aláez-Aller

    (Departamento de Economía, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Campus Arrosadia, 31006-Pamplona, Spain)

  • Pablo Díaz-de-Basurto

    (Departamento de Organización de Empresas, Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao, Spain)

Abstract

Two opposing viewpoints can be found in recent literature on trends in welfare states. The first (efficiency thesis) envisages the retrenchment of the welfare state, while the second viewpoint (the ‘resilience theory’) holds that reforms and cutbacks in some parameters of social protection will be minor and will not jeopardise the essential nature of Western states. The present study makes sense in this context of hypotheses to be tested and it proposes an alternative to the measures currently available. The measure drawn up and used in this paper could be called the ‘synthetic relative standards of protection measure’ and is based in the aggregate social spending levels. Much of the evidence gathered in this research study is consistent with the resilience thesis. The impact of reforms is by no means as drastic as posited by the champions of the efficiency thesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Jon Olaskoaga-Larrauri & Ricardo Aláez-Aller & Pablo Díaz-de-Basurto, 2010. "Retrenchment or Resilience? New Evidence on Relative Social Expenditure Trends," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 28(5), pages 923-942, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:28:y:2010:i:5:p:923-942
    DOI: 10.1068/c0968
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/c0968
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/c0968?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Castles, Francis G., 2004. "The Future of the Welfare State: Crisis Myths and Crisis Realities," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199273928.
    2. Korpi, Walter & Palme, Joakim, 2003. "New Politics and Class Politics in the Context of Austerity and Globalization: Welfare State Regress in 18 Countries, 1975–95," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(3), pages 425-446, August.
    3. Crepaz, Markus M. L., 2002. "Duane Swank, Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(01), pages 101-106, January.
    4. Swank,Duane, 2002. "Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521001441, October.
    5. James P. Allan & Lyle Scruggs, 2004. "Political Partisanship and Welfare State Reform in Advanced Industrial Societies," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(3), pages 496-512, July.
    6. Swank,Duane, 2002. "Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521806688, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brady, David & Lee, Hang Young, 2014. "The rise and fall of government spending in affluent democracies, 1971-2008," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 24(1), pages 56-79.
    2. Mathew Y. H. Wong, 2013. "Median Voter and Power Resources Revisited: A Composite Model of Inequality," LIS Working papers 584, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    3. Jon Olaskoaga-Larrauri & Ricardo Aláez-Aller & Pablo Díaz-de-Basurto, 2010. "Measuring is Believing! Improving Conventional Indicators of Welfare State Development," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 96(1), pages 113-131, March.
    4. Vincent Mahler, 2006. "Electoral Turnout and Income Redistribution by the State: A Cross-National Analysis of the Developed Democracies," LIS Working papers 455, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Lyle Scruggs & James Allan, 2005. "The Material Consequences of Welfare States: Benefit Generosity and Absolute Poverty in 16 OECD Countries," LIS Working papers 409, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    6. Leslie McCall & Lane Kenworthy, 2007. "Inequality, Public Opinion, and Redistribution," LIS Working papers 459, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    7. Starke, Peter, 2005. "Resilient or residual? From the wage earners' welfare state to market conformity in New Zealand," TranState Working Papers 22, University of Bremen, Collaborative Research Center 597: Transformations of the State.
    8. Wang, Jinxian & Van Vliet, Olaf & Goudswaard, Kees, 2015. "Social assistance benefits and European coordination," MPRA Paper 66147, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Brady, David & Beckfield, Jason & Seeleib-Kaiser, Martin, 2004. "Economic Globalization and the Welfare State in Affluent Democracies, 1975-1998," Working papers of the ZeS 12/2004, University of Bremen, Centre for Social Policy Research (ZeS).
    10. Rommel, Tobias & Walter, Stefanie, 2016. "The Electoral Consequences of Offshoring," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 286, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    11. Fleckenstein, Timo & Lee, Soohyun Christine, 2017. "The politics of labor market reform in coordinated welfare capitalism: comparing Sweden, Germany, and South Korea," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 68210, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Danuvas Sagarik, 2016. "Determinants of Health Expenditures in ASEAN Region: Theory and Evidence," Millennial Asia, , vol. 7(1), pages 1-19, April.
    13. Obinger, Herbert & Leibfried, Stephan & Bogedan, Claudia & Gindulis, Edith & Moser, Julia, 2004. "Beyond resilience: Welfare state changes in Austria, Denmark, New Zealand and Switzerland," TranState Working Papers 5, University of Bremen, Collaborative Research Center 597: Transformations of the State.
    14. Wang, Jinxian & Van Vliet, Olaf, 2014. "Social assistance and minimum income benefits: Benefit levels, replacement rates and policies across 33 countries, 1990-2009," MPRA Paper 66464, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Pasquale Tridico & Walter Paternesi Meloni, 2018. "Economic growth, welfare models and inequality in the context of globalisation," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 29(1), pages 118-139, March.
    16. Pasquale Tridico, 2014. "Welfare models, inequality and economic performance during globalisation," Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' 0191, Department of Economics - University Roma Tre.
    17. Vincent Mahler & David Jesuit, 2004. "State Redistribution in Comparative Perspective: A Cross-National Analysis of the Developed Countries," LIS Working papers 392, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    18. Bergh, Andreas, 2006. "Explaining Welfare State Survival: The Role of Economic Freedom and Globalization," Ratio Working Papers 101, The Ratio Institute.
    19. Eckhard Hein & Walter Paternesi Meloni & Pasquale Tridico, 2021. "Welfare models and demand-led growth regimes before and after the financial and economic crisis," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(5), pages 1196-1223, October.
    20. Tetsuya Matsubayashi & Michiko Ueda, 2012. "Government Partisanship and Human Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 107(1), pages 127-148, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:28:y:2010:i:5:p:923-942. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.