ABSTRACT
The modern welfare state is a European invention (Flora 1986), and nowhere else is it more comprehensive – although with substantial internal variations – in terms of both social risk and population coverage. In discussing the viability of advanced welfare states, it is also appropriate to remind ourselves that almost ever since the beginnings of the modern welfare state, which we can reasonably date to Bismarck’s social insurance program in the 1880s, it has been claimed that it is in crisis (Alber 1988). 1 It may be instructive to have this perspective in mind when assessing the current ‘state of the welfare state’ and prospects for its future. The future of the welfare state is not only about economics, but it is also about politics in all its aspects: political participation, inclusion, representation, ideas, political cleavages, political culture, and system of governance.
