ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a brief summary of how neo-liberal globalization has impacted upon welfare states in the north and social development prospects in the south. It describes the emerging “socially responsible globalization” discourse. The chapter addresses the implications for social security. The increased opportunity globalization generates for private providers of welfare services to become global and operate in many countries may contribute to the undermining of national social provision and national regulatory policies. Globalization and the discourses associated with it therefore present a very real challenge to those who manage and defend social security institutions of the European kind within which a large role is often allocated to the state and provision for risk sharing across classes is provided for. The challenges may be summarized as: the privatization threat, the fiscal base threat and the legitimacy threat.
