War and Welfare: Europe and the United States, 1945 to the Present - Softcover

Klausen, J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312238835 ISBN 13: 9780312238834

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001

Synopsis

From belligerent to neutral countries, the civilian war economy that developed from 1939 to 1945 created the foundations for the postwar welfare state. War and Welfare examines the legacy of the 'warfare state' and reveals how it paved the path for the welfare state in ensuing decades. Jytte Klausen shows how the institutional marks made by World War II were critical to capitalist reform after the war. She argues that the warfare state was a gift to the European Left, and asserts that state-expansion and the changing domestic order during the war, in most countries regardless of their stances, anticipated the welfare state. When the war ended in 1945, the reconstruction process rested on piecemeal decisions to remove or retain war-time controls over the economy, ranging from state cartels to wage fixing. Klausen argues that the welfare state ratified prior changes in state-society relations and represented a continuation of institutional development undertaken during the war years. Meticulously researched and cogently argued, War and Welfare offers a different angle on the conception and construction of the welfare state, and lends insights into what may lie ahead in the future.

About this title

About the Author

JYTTE KLAUSEN is Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics, Brandeis University. She is an Affiliate of the Minda de Gunzberg Center for European Studies, Harvard University, where she is co-chair of the Workshop on Gender and Citizenship. In 1996-97, Dr. Klausen was a Fellow at The Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, Harvard University.

From Library Journal

Klausen (comparative politics, Brandeis Univ.) believes that the civilian war economy that grew during the period from 1939 to 1945 in both belligerent and neutral countries built the foundation for what became the modern welfare state. Since government expansion during the war anticipated the welfare state, the welfare state after 1945 was a ratification of prior changes in state-society relations. These developments effectively ended the hopes of prewar European trade unions and their political counterparts for the establishment of a state-centered planned economy. The general analysis is well buttressed with studies of wartime Great Britain, Sweden, and the United States and postwar West Germany. The writing, however, is dense and repetitious. Suitable for political science collections in academic libraries.?Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., New York
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0312238835
• ISBN 13: 9780312238834
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 347