Policy Press

Three Roads to the Welfare State

Liberalism, Social Democracy and Christian Democracy

By Bryan Fanning

Published

Sep 3, 2021

Page count

266 pages

ISBN

978-1447360322

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Sep 3, 2021

Page count

266 pages

ISBN

978-1447360339

Dimensions

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Sep 3, 2021

Page count

266 pages

ISBN

978-1447360339

Dimensions

Imprint

Policy Press
Three Roads to the Welfare State

In the media
'People like us'
By Bryan Fanning in Dublin Review of Books
On Transforming Society: 'The inevitability of social policy'

The development of social policy in Europe is explored in this accessible intellectual history and analysis of the welfare state.

From the Industrial Revolution onwards, the book identifies three important concepts behind efforts to address social concerns in Europe: social democracy, Christian democracy and liberalism. With guides to the political and ideological protagonists and the beliefs and values that lie behind reforms, it traces the progress and legacies of each of the three traditions.

For academics and students across social policy and the political economy, this is an illuminating new perspective on the welfare state through the last two centuries.

Bryan Fanning is Professor of Migration and Social Policy at University College Dublin.

1. Three roads

2. The invention of laissez faire

3. Utopian socialism

4. Reform liberalism and technocracy

5. Catholic social thought versus modernity

6. The case for social democracy

7. Social engineering versus democracy

8. The rise of neoliberalism

9. European Christian democracy

10. Legacies