Comparative Social Policy: A Historical Overview of the Field

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Published: Feb 13, 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/scad.15944
Keywords:
Comparative social policy historical overview welfare regime theory
Varvara Lalioti
Panteion University
Abstract

This article aims to provide a succinct historical overview of comparative social policy. Typified by both challenges and benefits, comparative social policy started to experience a period of growth in the 1960s, a time characterized by the dominance of the socalled Keynesian welfare state. It will be argued that the publication of Esping-Andersen’s Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism in 1990, during a period marked by the  omnipotence of the so-called Schumpeterian welfare state, coincides with the beginning of a new era for comparative social policy, one that has resulted in it being recognized as a separate field of study. The article discusses the main characteristics of each evolutionary phase of comparative social policy, as exemplified by the preponderance of descriptive studies and the functionalist family of welfare state explanations in the pre-1990 years and the dominance of the welfare state taxonomies in the post-1990 period. In spite of the challenges that are yet to be overcome, the proliferation of studies in the field transmits
positive messages about the future of comparative social policy.

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Author Biography
Varvara Lalioti, Panteion University

Varvara Lalioti is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Social Policy of Panteion
University, also teaching at the University of the Peloponnese and Democritus University of
Thrace. She received a DPhil in Comparative Social Policy from the University of Oxford, and holds first degrees in history and sociology and higher degrees in public policy and political economy. Her special interests lie in the fields of Comparative Social Policy and Comparative Political Economy.

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