ABSTRACT
The close links between industrial and welfare state development have long been recognised in the political economy literature. Some authors attach primal causal weight to the ‘logic of industrialism’ in explaining welfare state expansion. Through its simultaneous creation of economic growth and destruction of traditional social networks and support systems, it is argued, industrial development created both a demand for state welfare policies and an opportunity for their provision (Wilensky 1975). Others have emphasised political factors such as the development of a coherent and solidaristic social democratic movement in explaining variations in welfare state effort within the group of advanced industrial nations. However, despite their more political logic, these accounts also recognise the links between welfare state development and the expansion of the industrial working class (Stephens 1979; Korpi 1983; Esping-Andersen 1985).
