ABSTRACT
Social welfare remains a salient and divisive political issue in democracies throughout the world. The prominence of social welfare has increased as other features of the left-right divide have faded in influence, such as nationalization versus privatization, and relations with the Soviet Union. Although there was a consensus on the welfare state in many West European nations in the postwar period, this began to break down in the 1970s with the rise of anti-welfare state ideologies. The British Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher, the Scandinavian Progress Parties and the US Republicans since Reagan’s presidency campaigned on platforms of welfare state retrenchment and tax cuts. The polarizing nature of the welfare issue was apparent from the controversy over the first Clinton administration’s failure to introduce universal health insurance in the US.2
