Topic:  The Welfare State

Globalization, economic restructuring, and shifting sands in the
social and political arenas challenge the viability and meaning of
the modern welfare state.  Signs of global retrenchment include
small, incremental measures such as new restrictions on medical
leaves in the Netherlands and increased privatization of health care
in Sweden.  On a larger scale, the “crisis” of the welfare state is
symbolized by the momentous effort to “end welfare as we know it” by
cutting federal poverty programs in the U.S. and by serious
reconsideration of the generous retirement pensions built into the
social contract of Western European nations.  Despite these changes,
it would be a mistake to predict the demise of the welfare state.
Health, education, and family policy remain at the forefront of
national political agendas, and aggregate social expenditures show
little sign of massive cutbacks.  The current period likely reflects
a transformation of the welfare state, rather than a decline.

This course provides a broad overview of social research on the
welfare state.  We consider the political and ideological origins of
the welfare state, cross-national variation in welfare state regimes
and social policies, and recent contributions to the empirical and
theoretical assessment of welfare state retrenchment.  We also
consider the consequences of social policy for race, gender, and
class inequality within societies, and the consequences for social
inequality when labor market institutions and family institutions are
changing more rapidly than welfare policy.

The course is run as a seminar.  Each session will combine student
presentations on the day’s topic with class discussions.
Presentations count for 10% of the course grade, and participation in
class discussions counts for 40% of the course grade.  All students
are required to write a final paper that is either sole-authored or
the result of a collaboration limited to seminar members.  The final
paper must address a topic related to the course material, and can
take one of three forms: (1) An empirical analysis that addresses a
specific research question in the welfare state literature (2) A
research proposal for an empirical analysis (i.e., the “front end” of
the empirical paper) (3) An in-depth summary  of the literature in a
sub-field that reviews key questions and contributions, methods,
strengths, weaknesses and identifies specific directions for future
research.  The paper counts for 50% of the course grade; no
incompletes or extensions will be permitted.