Inclusion and Exclusion in the Liberal Competition State: The Cult of the Individual

This book examines the increasingly international division of labour, which promotes transnational integration. It analyses the change in worker solidarity as it moves from collective national welfare to a transnational inclusion of workers from various links in the production chain.

Examining three types of welfare regimes within the USA, Germany, Denmark and Sweden, the author addresses how and why globalization is furthering the change from the welfare state to the competition state. The book considers in particular the change to solidarity taking place because of the internationalization of labour division; a change away from the segmented and differentiated system of nation states with strong internal national solidarity to broader, more inclusive and cross-border labour identity and inclusion. Analysing the deeper moral consequences of a globalised labour society, such as the paradigms of inclusion and justice, this book considers the implications of transnational labour on national welfare politics, and looks at the increasing significance of the transnational and national politics of inclusion in social policy, education, minority rights, immigration and gender equality.

Inclusion and Exclusion in the Liberal Competition State will be of interest to scholars and students of political science, sociology and social policy studying welfare state change.

Richard Münch is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bamberg, Germany.