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    The regulatory rescue of the Welfare State

    Mabbett, Deborah (2010) The regulatory rescue of the Welfare State. Working Paper. Jerusalem Papers in Regulation & Governance, Jerusalem, Israel.

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    Abstract

    The regulatory state and the welfare state can be described in terms of contrasting pairs of ‘types of policies’ and ‘types of politics’ following Lowi (1972). The paradigmatic regulatory type of policy is market coordination, and its type of politics is nonmajoritarian, technical and supranational. The welfare state has redistribution as its paradigmatic type of policy, and the dominant type of politics is majoritarian, party-political and national. This paper dissects these distinctions. Public sector reforms mean that regulatory types of policy can increasingly be found within welfare service provision. Different arrangements for labour market coordination are integral to different welfare state regimes, and at the same time these regulatory arrangements are concerned with combating market failure and promoting efficiency. There are abundant examples of technical, expertocratic policy-making within the welfare state and a high level of supranational policy exchange. Delegation is important to the institutionalisation of the welfare state, as are nonmajoritarian commitments to social rights, secured for example for migrants. These findings cast doubt on the characterisation of welfare state policy-making as political and partisan. It is suggested that the interpenetration of regulatory politics enhances the robustness of the welfare state in the face of international market integration, while at the same time biasing policy towards the promotion of efficiency and suppressing the importance of solidaristic political values.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Monograph (Working Paper)
    Additional Information: ISSN: 2079-5882 Working Paper No. 28
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): regulation, regulatory state, welfare state, regulatory governance
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Depositing User: Sarah Hall
    Date Deposited: 04 Nov 2013 12:03
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:08
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/8670

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