(De)Constructing Dependency: Institutional, Historical Perspectives of Welfare

In contrast to most methodology in the welfare state literature, this approach will problematize, rather than assume, the tripartite division of states, families, and markets in modern liberal society. The author proposes that this very tripartite division is the result of a disciplinary strategy, under which the conditions of life became contingent and private. She demonstrates that in the early nineteenth-century United Kingdom, welfare, defined as the transfer of resources to families outside of the market mechanism, became the institutional enforcement condition of the private sphere. Following a review of the welfare state literature, including both traditional and feminist contributions, a disciplinary approach is proposed, building on the work of Michel Foucault. Proposals for improving the position of women and relieving some of the dilemmas of the modern welfare state are offered in conclusion.