Warfare and Welfare : Military Conflict and Welfare State Development in Western Countries

While the first half of the 20th century was characterized by total war, the second half witnessed, at least in the Western world, a massive expansion of the modern welfare state. A growing share of the population was covered by ever more generous systems of social protection that dramatically reduced poverty and economic inequality in the post-war decades. With it also came a growth in social spending, taxation and regulation that changed the nature of the modern state and the functioning of market economies. Whether and in which ways warfare and the rise of the welfare state are related, is subject of this volume.

Distinguishing between three different phases (war preparation, wartime mobilization, and the post-war period), the volume provides the first systematic comparative analysis of the impact of war on welfare state development in the western world. The chapters written by leading scholars in this field examine both short-term responses to and long-term effects of war in fourteen belligerent, occupied, and neutral countries in the age of mass warfare stretching over the period from ca. 1860 to 1960. The volume shows that both world wars are essential for understanding several aspects of welfare state development in the western world.

Herbert Obinger is Professor of Comparative Public and Social Policy, University of Bremen. His research focuses on comparative welfare state research and comparative political economy. His publications include The Political Economy of Privatization in Rich Democracies (with Carina Schmidtt and Stefan Traub, OUP, 2016), The Welfare State as Crisis Manager (with Peter Starke, Alexandra Kaasch, and Franca van Hooren, Palgrave 2013), and The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State (co-edited with Francis G. Castles, Jane Lewis, Stephan, Leibfried, , and Christopher Pierson, OUP, 2010).

Klaus Petersen is Professor of Welfare History and Director of the Danish Centre for Welfare Studies, University of Southern Denmark. His research focuses on welfare state history, the Nordic model of welfare, and on contemporary Danish history. He has published in a number of leading journals including Journal of European Social Policy and the British Journal of Political Science.

Peter Starke is Associate Professor at the Danish Center for Welfare Studies, University of Southern Denmark. His research is in comparative welfare state research, qualitative and mixed methodology and political economy. His publications include Radical Welfare State Retrenchment (2008) and The Welfare State as Crisis Manager (2013), as well as articles in journals such as Policy Studies Journal, the Journal of European Public Policy, and Politics & Society.