European Foundations of the Welfare State

"This collected edition of Professor Kaufmann's essays, written over many years and now translated into English, offers a way of thinking about the welfare state that may not be familiar to an international readership; indeed it exposes the distinctively different intellectual foundations that have shaped the continental European notion of state welfare compared with those of the English-speaking, or Anglo-Saxon, world...[a] splendidly eloquent set of essays." · Journal of Contemporary European Studies


"An exceptional reprise of the welfare state experience, the author's sociological approach provides the means for gauging the adequacy of social policy over time and offering projections about the future... Highly recommended." · Choice


"This book renders accessible a rich set of essays on the past and future development of the welfare state in Europe... and is essential reading." · from the Foreword


"The author belongs to a handful of leading German sociologists. While his international reputation is undisputed, much of his work is not available in English. This collection is an excellent introduction to his work that combines systematic and historical approaches, is highly theoretical (also with respect to the history of social theory), but at the same time based on a profound knowledge of empirical material.." · Jürgen Kocka, Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam


"Reagan, Thatcher, New Zealand, austerity, Bush, more Bush, endless financial crises. If we are as shortsighted as Walter Benjamin's famous "angel of history," we stare at the wreckage at our feet, while the "storm of progress" propels us backwards into the future. But Franz-Xaver Kaufmann's angel of history flies above the storm and looks beyond the wreckage, giving us a multi-dimensional, panoramic view across nations, shifting theories, and eras -- from their 19th century inceptions, through their mid-20th-century "Golden Age," and into their turn-of-the-millennium retrenchment and internationalization. If we want to reclaim our sense of solidarity and rebuild our systems for insuring social and economic well-being, this collection of carefully selected, translated, and revised essays is the place to start." · Stephan Leibfried, Universität Bremen


While social welfare programs, often inspired by international organizations, are spreading throughout the world, the more far-reaching notion of governmental responsibility for the basic well-being of all members of a political society is not, although it remains a feature of Europe and the former British Commonwealth. The welfare state in the European sense is not simply an administrative arrangement of various measures of social protection but a political project embedded in distinct cultural traditions. Offering the first accessible account in English of the historical development of the European idea of the welfare state, this book reviews the intellectual foundations which underpinned the road towards the European welfare state, formulates some basic concepts for its understanding, and highlights the differences in the underlying structural and philosophical conditions between continental Europe and the English-speaking world.


Franz-Xaver Kaufmann is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy and Sociology at the University of Bielefeld. His research has focused on the history and institutions of social policy and the welfare state as well as its theory, demographic and family issues, and the sociology of religion. His major publications in English include: The Public Sector: Challenge for Coordination and Learning (edited, 1991); Family Life and Family Policies in Europe (co-edited, 2 vols; 1997, 2002); Varieties of the Welfare State (2012); and Thinking about Social Policy: The German Tradition (2012).